The Scenario and the Solution
by Jessa L'Rynn
Summary: It's the classic scenario: mix one batch of alien scientists, one prison cell with no amenities, one pink-and-yellow human companion, and one angry Time Lord with big ears and a leather jacket. Instant explosion: just add cliche.
1. The Scenario

**As I am a professional writer and have work to do to get paid, I have decided to deal with these thudding plot bunnies in the traditional manner - I will inflict them on others. Please see my Profile for the Challenges of the Month. Brand new September challenges have been issued for your entertainment, education, and inspiration. If you'd rather do August's, instead, please feel free to do so. Thanks to all those who have participated thus far - I've REALLY enjoyed all the results. The new challenges will run through the end of September. Please let me know when you respond to a Challenge so I can read and review.**

This story is my gift to **Gamine Madcap** who probably didn't mean to end up with this sort of thing written. Nevertheless, well, let's just say I couldn't resist a bad cliche. Also thanks to **Olfactory Ventriloquism** because she's always right and always brilliantly helpful.

* * *

**The Scenario and the Solution**

_Part One: The Scenario_

The Doctor stared at the blobby yellow aliens defiantly. Rose had no idea what was going on, as she could only understand his side of the conversation. Whatever language the blobby things - she couldn't even pronounce the name for them - were speaking, it wasn't something that would make sense to her, even translated, apparently. Or, for some other reason, the Doctor had asked the TARDIS not to translate. She didn't know, couldn't guess, but she was nervous, because the only other time since she'd met him that she'd not understood was with that Nestene thing and the Autons and that had been bad.

"No! Absolutely not!" the Doctor proclaimed fiercely. His blue eyes were blazing with powerful fury and he held her hand tighter, almost so tightly it hurt. She returned the strong grip, determined that she would do whatever she had to do to get them out of this predicament. Whatever the hell it was.

The biggest, blobbiest alien said something squishy and weird and the Doctor made a face. "Yes, I admit that," he said. "But no."

Whatever it said next drained his face of color. "Forget it," he responded, coldly.

The aliens came toward them with the electric sticks they'd used to herd them this far, and the Doctor backed away, tucking Rose behind him as he moved.

The blobby alien said something else, a gurgling, squashy, wet sounding command. The Doctor nodded. "Then lock us up," he said. "But it won't change my decision and when we escape, I'm coming after you."

Rose wondered if the aliens had any idea what they'd just summoned down on themselves as she and the Doctor were prodded and guided off toward the customary dungeon accommodations.

* * *

"So?" Rose asked him. "What are they? Dictators, terrorists, power mad conspirators, what?"

The Doctor slumped on his bench across the cell from her and glowered at the guard alien. "No, they're scientists," he said, grimly.

"Oh," she said, admittedly surprised. "So they want to dissect us or something?"

"No," he answered. Nothing else. God, sometimes it was easier to get the truth off the Council than to get a word off the Doctor. Rose leaned back against the wall, watching the Time Lord fidget. He was looking for an opportunity to use his screwdriver, she knew that, and he didn't want it taken away before he got round to it.

"What do they want?" she asked, coming up to lean over him, deliberately fitting into his personal space so she could block the guard's view.

He grinned at her and pulled out the screwdriver, then started talking loudly. "Well, you know, the usual threats, of course. Get threatened a lot, me, so I'm used to it." He used the screwdriver while he was talking, scanning around quickly and reading God alone knew what. Whatever it was it made his face fall. He leaned back a bit so she turned and he scanned the bars. "You know, the 'Do what we want, or die,' that sort of thing."

"Yeah, we do get that a lot," she agreed, loudly. "Hardly seems very original."

"Well, yeah, this one's a bit cliche," he agreed. He shook his head and stuffed the screwdriver in his pocket.

She sighed and went to sit back down on her side of the cell. So much for an easy escape.

When they changed guards, there was a bit of confusion. During that, he quietly explained that the bars were made of a kind of metal stone that was impervious to the sonic, due to the acidic nature of the aliens' skin. It also explained why he wouldn't let them touch her. He could take it, a little bit, but she would be horribly burned by even the lightest touch of their hands.

* * *

Hours passed. "Gotta tell you, Doctor, you sure do pick the best holidays."

He grunted and stretched out on his bench, looking weary and a bit resigned.

More hours passed and the aliens came back and threatened the Doctor some more. He ignored them for the most part, so she did her best to ignore them as well. However, at one point in the conversation, the alien sounded like it was cajoling rather than threatening and the Doctor's ears turned pink. He barked a fierce, angry retort in some language that wouldn't translate - probably because of rudeness, this time - and the alien went brighter yellow and squished off in high dudgeon. Rose giggled and settled back on her bench, thinking of having a nap.

She was woken from her sleep by another half-sided conversation. The alien had what looked like a medical kit with it this time. The Doctor was looming against the bars, looking a lot like he was going to triplicate the flammability of something with his furious eyes alone. The alien was gesturing at her and the Doctor said nothing but, "Don't even think about it."

The alien stalked off again, and Rose thought it was starting to look a little frustrated. "What do they want?" she asked blearily.

"Never mind," said the Doctor, and came over to sit beside her, putting a comforting hand on her shoulder.

She smiled up at him, then laid her head down in his lap. He stared down at her in bewilderment. "Thanks," she said, and turned a little, trying to get comfortable. Hard muscle made a better pillow than hard bench, but he would keep twitching, pretty much every time she breathed. "Hold still," she complained, putting her hand on his thigh next to her face and trying to soothe him.

He lowered a hand to her waist, as if he was afraid she'd explode on contact. She sighed contentedly and closed her eyes.

She woke a few more times, once to the sensation of his fingers threading comfortingly through her hair, once when he shrugged out of his jacket to drape it over her shoulders and once because the Time Lord she was using as a pillow was snoring rather impressively. All three times she was eased back into sleep by the steady presence of the Doctor, the knowledge that he could solve all of this and get them back to the TARDIS and back to the stars where they belonged.

* * *

"Don't talk," the Doctor ordered the alien who had arrived first thing the next morning. "You'll wake her." The alien muttered something at him and burbled off.

Rose smiled. He was so protective of her. She turned over, having momentarily forgotten where she was lying. His hands snagged her before she fell, one catching her arm in a strong grip, the other firmly planted on her bottom. She knew he was going to kill her for that and her eyes flew open.

She breathed an explosive breath of relief at having been caught. He twitched again. Her eyes widened and she forced them to concentrate on his belt buckle and nothing else in front of her face. Might kill her for this, too, she realized. She dared to peek up at him, taking in the lovely view of his jumper clad torso on her way up. His eyes were dark blue and the expression in them stopped her breath.

Before she could give it a name, he shifted his hold on her and eased her into a sitting position. "You all right?" he murmured. His voice sounded strange.

"Yeah," she agreed. "Sorry 'bout that."

"No worries," he pronounced and bounded to his feet. He muttered a small complaint, probably his back was hurting him from the position he slept in, and then reached over and snagged his leather jacket back from her. He held it in front of him and rifled through the pockets until he produced a single banana. "Breakfast, I'm afraid," he said ruefully.

She gaped at him. She was starving, hadn't eaten since breakfast yesterday. Her stomach grumbled a small protest.

The Doctor smiled at her apologetically and handed her the banana. "You have it, I'm fine," he said.

She snorted. She'd seen him eat. Nevertheless, she peeled it and broke it in half. He shrugged and took the half she offered, stuffing it in his mouth in maybe two bites and pacing the cage, looking for all the world like a panther in a zoo.

Since it was all she had to eat, she leaned back against the bars and savored it. Bananas were pretty good, after all, and she was hungry enough that she didn't care that it was a bit sticky on her fingers as she nibbled at it.

She looked up to admire the Doctor pacing again, but he wasn't. He was leaning against the bars opposite her, and his eyes were carefully watching the aliens. His hand was clenched into a fist, the other stuffed into his pocket. He looked like he was about to chuck the sonic screwdriver at the aliens rather than try to use it to escape. His eyes, as well as she could see them, were blazing.

She turned her attention back to her meal and he made a small noise of exasperation. Those aliens had better let them out or he was gonna blow this place up.

She started sucking at her fingers to get the sticky bits of banana off and the Doctor snapped, "Don't do that," at her. She looked up at him, startled. Hadn't even realized he was paying any attention to her.

"It isn't sanitary," he said quickly, and brought over a clean handkerchief from somewhere.

"Is there any water?" she asked, her mouth suddenly dry.

He shook his head, his eyes apologetic as he knelt next to her and handed her the handkerchief. He was close enough, she could just... He stood back up and walked across the room. When he turned away, she sighed.

He was being so nice to her, and she really needed to get over the mad ideas in her head, the ones that often kept her up nights in the TARDIS. Whatever he felt for her, it was completely platonic. She'd realized that a few weeks back, after Downing Street. With the things he'd said, and the way he'd said them, she'd been convinced he would take her back to the TARDIS and shag her rotten, but he didn't. She just needed to give it up and get over it.

She leaned back against the bars and silently wished for water and other impossible things.

* * *

The hours crept by. Some time during hour two, the Doctor pulled a Duncan Imperial out of a pocket and began doing tricks with it. She watched him in fascination, guessing after he pulled one particularly impossible variation that there was something funny about that yo yo - or possibly the Time Lord playing with it.

When he got bored with it, he offered it to her, but she waved him off apologetically. She got the string tangled just playing with the things. He rifled through his pockets and produced a Rubik's cube. She grinned at it and set to playing with it, thoroughly scrambling it after only a few minutes. Then, she couldn't get it back to save her soul. The Doctor came and sat beside her, taking it from her hands. A few deft twists and he had it back to solids.

"How'd you do that?" she asked.

"Genius," he replied smugly.

"Then get us out of this cell," she demanded.

"Working on it," he assured her, and pocketed the Rubik's cube.

She stuffed her hand in after it, but it had gone into the God-knows-where space that was the bottom of his pockets. "What else you got in there?" she asked.

"Depends on which pocket," he said. She tugged playfully on the jeans pocket nearest her, and he pulled out the screwdriver again. "That's it." He put up a hand to show it was otherwise empty.

She sighed and, bored out of her mind, laid back down on the bench, wishing for water and maybe some nice, hot chips.

Then the aliens turned back up, with the medical kit again. The Doctor was apparently being offered the medical services this time. He shouted them down, chased them off, and then walked to the back of the cell and proceeded to kick the wall.

Rose scrambled from the bench and went up beside him, putting a soothing hand on his arm. He turned to look at her and she saw something beyond what she had ever seen before. His eyes were wild and full of star-fire, burning, blazing, very nearly out of control. He had never, ever looked quite so alien, not even when he stood there and coldly pronounced judgement on Cassandra and watched her die, not even when he'd tried to blow up that Dalek. Suddenly, she understood something she hadn't really understood before. His feelings weren't unlike human feelings, but they were so much bigger than human feelings. His joy was like sunrise, like the first dawn of the first day, and his rage was like that fire storm across the sky, like the flash frozen seas of ice on Woman Wept.

She shivered and, feeling like she was taking her life in her own hands, leaned in closer to him. She could watch him like that for the rest of her life, just let that raging storm of his emotions burn around her and through her, consuming the rest of her days with an endless dance through the thunder and the lightning that were his eyes and his heart beats and his life. She moved ever closer, unable to resist, drawn in, feeling like she belonged there, in his wonder and his orbit, inside him, within him.

He blinked, briefly, and then the completely alien look was gone from his eyes and he leaned against her. "You shouldn't have had to see that," he said, the closest thing to an apology she had ever heard from him.

"Don't," she said, and he looked completely startled while she shrugged. "What's wrong?" she said, instead of going into her feelings about what he had revealed to her.

"This is completely beneath your dignity," he said. "Never mind mine."

"Oh, yeah, because your Time Lord dignity is so much more important than my stupid ape dignity," she said, half teasing and half insulted.

"Well, yeah. Enormous dignity, most Time Lords. Coulda bruised and banged it up turning corners, some of them."

She smiled. This was the most he'd ever said about his people before. She could keep teasing him, or arguing with him, whichever, but it was risky territory and a subject she knew it was necessary to avoid at all costs. "You never did say what they want," she said, instead.

He still clammed up and fell silent.

* * *

The aliens came by two more times and the Doctor and Rose did their best to ignore them. They played a few hands of poker on the floor, but it wasn't the best game to play with two people and no chips. The Doctor rattled on about the origin of playing cards and, when she got bored with that, taught her a very complex solitaire.

Rose sat quietly in between his fits of trying to entertain her. When they got out of here, she was going to drink the TARDIS dry. She was reasonably certain that would take a while, but at the moment she was willing to give it a go. Her lips were dry and feeling chapped, her mouth was dry and feeling parched, and her stomach was rumbling periodically. She was beginning to think that maybe she could eat a whole steak, too, one of those large ones the Doctor liked to go with his chips in restaurants.

Mind, if she didn't get to go to the loo, soon, it wasn't going to matter, because she was going to die of embarrassment and wouldn't be around when there were steaks and chips and water a plenty.

The aliens came by one more time after Rose had pretty much had it. She was sweating and miserable and felt disgusting and hungry and quite a lot like she was starving of thirst. Nevertheless, she was also certain her eyeballs were floating and she hardly dared move from the pressure on her bladder. If she at least knew what was going on, she could endure anything, she was sure, but this was beyond any sort of explanation, and she was fed up.

The Doctor, looking rumpled and furious and every bit as miserable as she felt, still seemed to have it in him to pick yet another fight with them. She listened to the one-sided conversation as he threatened and complained about their conditions and spat words like "Shadow Proclamation" and "sentient experimental subjects". When the aliens decided they'd had enough Time Lord raging, they zapped him a few good times through the bars with their electric sticks and then squashed away, looking menacing this time.

She knelt carefully next to where he had crumpled on the floor, scared to death that they'd hurt him. She didn't have any way to help him, here, and if he was injured, she wouldn't understand what the aliens were saying, and couldn't get them out of this.

He groaned miserably, so she eased his head into her lap and soothed him with a hand stroking his dark, short-cropped hair. He tilted his face into her hand, eyes scrunched closed, looking like he was in an awful lot of pain. "Doctor," she whispered. She wasn't calling him, really, just talking. "It's ok, Doctor. You'll be all right, soon." She shushed him softly when he jerked his head. "My Doctor. We're safe, we'll be fine. Hush now, just relax."

He moaned softly, stopped fidgeting, and finally stilled. "That's nice, Rose," he murmured after a moment.

"Are you awake then?" she asked quietly.

"Obviously not," he said.

She had no idea what to make of that. "Don't worry, Doctor. You'll get better soon and get us out of here, I know you will."

His eyes snapped open, meeting hers with an expression that looked like considerable shock. "Where am I?" he demanded.

"Lying on the floor," she answered.

"Right," he said and, taking in her angle, realized where his head had to be. He bounded again to his feet, took a single, ginger step, only to crumple up again, hissing in pain.

Rose knee walked over next to him. "Don't move," she ordered. "You'll hurt yourself."

"I'll be fine," he grated out through clenched teeth.

"Stop it," she snapped as he tried to get away from her. "Lie down, lie still, let me help you."

"No," he protested.

That did it. She exploded. "What the hell is going on here, Doctor? 'Cuz, I've got to tell you, I've had enough."

He stared at her, blinked, said nothing. His mouth had compressed to a hard line and she was beginning to think he would never speak again. That was pretty unlikely, but it didn't look that way at the moment.

"Fine, you won't tell me, I'll just sit here. If I make a puddle on this floor, you're not allowed to say anything ever about it and if the dehydration gets me before the embarrassment does, you've got to go tell my mum. I'm hungry and I'm filthy and I'd give just about anything for water right now, and I'm not an oh, so impressive Time Lord, so I can't take it. No superior biology or whatever the hell it is you got, all right? So you'd best just tell me what the hell they want so I can give it to them and get us the hell out of here."

He blinked at her in astonishment and watched her right hand, as she brought it up to rub her face, in something that looked very much like horror. Maybe he was wondering if she hit as hard as her mum. Well, if he didn't tell her, he was going to find out.

"I'm waiting," she growled.

He sighed. "Theywanttoseeourreproductivepractices."

"Sorry? Can you do that in English? I don't speak 'scared whinging'."

"Shut it," he grumbled, and took a deep breath. "They want to see how Time Lords procreate."

She stared at him. He glowered back at her. She started to laugh. He gave an angry chuff and jerked himself up, using the bars as hand holds. She tried to climb to her feet, couldn't quite manage it, had to stop laughing before she really did make that puddle on the floor. She leaned on her hands and knees and tried to breathe, tried to stop, but one quick glance at his stormy, furious gaze set her off worse than before.

He leaned over, his beautiful, daft grin now trying its damnedest to fight its way onto his face, and very gently lifted her to her feet, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. She was shaking hard from trying not to laugh, and she leaned in to him, listening to his chest rumble with that chuckle that had finally escaped him. "This is ridiculous," he commented.

"Damn right," she agreed, and breathed deeply, inhaling the scents of leather and him and loving every minute of it. He guided her back to her bench and sat with her, his arm still wrapped comfortingly around her shoulder. She just leaned into him and wondered why he had to make such a production of everything.

"So, it's pretty much shag or die," she said.

"Yup," he agreed after a moment. "Told you it was a cliche: exactly the sort of things you daft apes come up with in your aliens in space shows on tele."

She thought about it, head in her hands, fighting a blush. OK, yeah, so she watched Star Trek, and knew exactly what he was talking about. Stubborn alien with interesting ears.

She started giggling again, just thinking about it. Poor Doctor, trapped with a whole bunch of alien scientists who wanted a demonstration of his reproductive methods. Like it was something they'd never...

She felt like one of those cartoon characters, like a blindingly bright light bulb had just come on over her head.

"What?" the Doctor said.

Rose smirked at him.

"What?" he repeated, sounding a bit nervous now. "C'mon, Rose, I know that look. What're you thinking?"

She leaned in very close to the nearest interesting ear and, in a halting whisper, told him exactly what she was thinking. He gaped at her, his eyes wide and startled and slightly confused. "Really?" he asked.

She nodded, chewing nervously at her bottom lip.

He grinned then, and cupped her face in his hand. "Fantastic!" he announced.

Rose nodded again, and sighed as he pulled away and bounded to his feet. "Just... just gimme a mo," he said. "I think... yeah, fantastic."


	2. The Solution

**As I am a professional writer and have work to do to get paid, I have decided to deal with these thudding plot bunnies in the traditional manner - I will inflict them on others. Please see my Profile for the Challenges of the Month. Brand new September challenges have been issued for your entertainment, education, and inspiration. If you'd rather do August's, instead, please feel free to do so. Thanks to all those who have participated thus far - I've REALLY enjoyed all the results. The new challenges will run through the end of September. Please let me know when you respond to a Challenge so I can read and review.**

This story is my gift to **Gamine Madcap** who probably didn't mean to end up with this sort of thing written. Nevertheless, well, let's just say I couldn't resist a bad cliche. Also thanks to **Olfactory Ventriloquism** because she's always right and always brilliantly helpful.

* * *

**The Scenario and the Solution**

_Part Two: The Solution_

The aliens prodded them to a different room, a proper room, with an attached loo. Rose was so relieved to see that that she darted quite willingly into the new prison cell, pushed past the Doctor, into the loo, and shut the door firmly behind her.

Inside, she took care of the most pressing problem, washed her hands carefully, and then tried her level damnedest to drain the faucet dry. Then she scrubbed her face and opened the door to let the Doctor in. He smiled at her, cupped her cheek again, and shooed her back toward the bed, smirking a bit.

She put a hand over her mouth and, since she didn't feel like she would explode any more, she started laughing again. It was stress, she knew that, and the stunt they were about to pull.

It wasn't like she would mind...

She chortled and rolled across the bed and generally lost herself to hilarity. Poor Doctor. His pride was such that he wouldn't allow himself - or her - to be compelled into anything, and even the suggestion of it bruised his dignity. She strongly considered how much she could get out of wholly faked outrage at the implication that he would choose dying over shagging her. Still, to do that, she'd have to pretend like she didn't understand his motives, and if she understood anything about him, it was that he would always choose free will.

Caught up in musing and occasional fits of giggling, she was completely oblivious to the Doctor's return. When he dropped his long, lanky form onto the bed beside her, with a rather enthusiastic bounce, she might add, she was quite startled.

"'Lo," he said, peering down at her with intriguingly dark blue eyes.

"Hi," she whispered, then bit back another snicker.

He chuckled ruefully. "Clever, clever girl," he said softly. "C'mere."

She smiled and inched up until she was lying beside him.

"Cameras rolling and all that nuisance, I'm sure," he complained cheerfully. "Sure you're up for this?"

She laughed gleefully and nudged him in the ribs. "If you are," she said, the double entendre of that obvious to a human, anyway.

And to him, apparently. He rolled his eyes. "Behave," he muttered.

She poked her tongue out through her grin, then shook her head. "I am behaving," she teased.

He looked at her, just looked at her, his eyes dark and strange again, and she felt her breath catch in her throat. Did he have any idea, could he even imagine, did he know? Sometimes, the way he looked at her - his body language must be different from a human's because sometimes those deep, penetrating expressions of his made her want um... well... Her face went up in flames, just at the thought.

He blinked, then the broad grin spread across his face. "Right, then," he muttered. "Time Lord procreative practices. Haven't got any knitting needles."

She snorted, wishing her face would hurry up and cool off. "What're knitting needle to the price of rice?" she asked.

"Old joke," he said. "You'd have to be there." Sighing, he leaned over. "This is insane," he whispered.

"You're telling me," she whispered with rolled eyes.

"Trust you to solve one cliche with another one," he complained quietly.

"D'you think they won't buy it?" She chewed at her lip, worried that maybe she'd come up with the wrong idea.

"Well, you've definitely got the point that if they've never seen it before, they can't argue about what it's supposed to look like."

"Exactly," she agreed. "So go on. Improvise."

He snorted. "One of the things I do best, me."

"Just one?" she asked.

"Well, there's others," he said, with the most interesting sparkle in his eyes. Then, he raised a hand to her face. "Hold still and stop snickering."

"Right," she said. "Just let me know when I'm s'posed to start enjoying myself."

"Silly human," he murmured, and wrapped his other arm around her, pulling her close.

She whimpered. It seemed appropriate. He chuckled again, and then they were both laughing. He hugged her tighter to him and she buried her face in his chest, just letting herself get lost in the smell of him and the feel of him so close. Sounded a bit like he was purring like a cat, and the double thrum of his hearts was a rhythm she could get used to, even if they did pound awfully fast.

He raked a hand through her hair and she practically purred herself. "Just lie still," he whispered, dropping a hand onto her face, again. "Close your eyes."

She did and breathed deeply, trying not to give in to thinking about her silly human fantasies of what a moment like this could be about. In a proper bed, back in the TARDIS, comfortable and safe and nothing between them but the air they breathed... She had such ideas for those ears...

Rose smiled softly into the warm leather. Ok, so it wasn't anybody's lurid, erotic fantasy, but lying in his arms was much easier than running for their lives.

* * *

"That's it," she heard the Doctor say. The aliens were chattering at him, sounding like nothing so much as a pot of boiling soup. Rose blinked up at the ceiling, blearily. What the hell was going on?

Oh, she'd fallen asleep again. There was so much running around all through time and space that she tended to sleep any time they had a quiet moment. She shifted around and closed her eyes again, and missed the Doctor's body reclined on the bed next to her. Have to talk to him about that when they got back to the TARDIS.

Yeah, that would be a fun conversation. She rolled her eyes, even if they weren't open. "Doctor," she imagined herself trying to say with a straight face, "I've got this really big bed, and I just wondered, you know, so much room to fill up, would you sleep in it with me?" The very best she'd get would be a stern look, although there was also the extremely high probability of a lecture about Time Lords being too fantastic to need to sleep like stupid apes.

Mind, if she'd caught him sleeping in the recliner next to her bed once, she'd caught him there six times. He hadn't left her side once the night after 1987, for example, and she was glad, because she hadn't wanted him to do. She'd wanted to know he was alive and with her after her mistake had killed him. She'd known then, once and for all and irrevocably. The Doctor was the man she loved, and she would follow him for as long as he would let her.

The aliens had stopped boiling at him. The Doctor said, "No, really, told you we're a very boring species. Just the briefest touch, no need to be all messy and noisy about it. 'Sides, she's passed out, that's gotta be worth some kind of points or something. Just let us go and we'll call it pax, all right? I wasn't here and neither were you and we're quits on the matter."

The aliens burbled something else and sounded like they gargled a few fish at him. God, the noises they made weren't half disgusting.

"What?!" the Doctor roared. "Oh, hell no," he added.

There was the sound of a slamming door, and the Doctor stalked back to the bed and prodded her gingerly with a finger. "Awake yet, Sleeping Beauty?"

"Thought Sleeping Beauty got woke with kisses?" she complained.

"When's the last time you saw a Handsome Prince with ears like this?" he muttered, and tugged the sonic screwdriver from his pocket.

_Just before I went to sleep_, she thought.

The Doctor turned around and stared at her. She stared back at him, and he shook his head. "So you're awake?" he asked.

"Yeah," she said. "Did you hypnotize me or something?"

"Nah," he replied and pinched the bridge of his nose. "No, just told you to close your eyes and you were out like half of San Francisco."

She chuckled, then realized. "So'd they buy it, or do I have to make interesting noises or something?"

He gaped at her. She couldn't resist giggling at the look on his face, somewhere between awed incredulity and sheer, unmitigated disbelief.

"What?" she said. "I dated Jimmy Stone. I can fake anything."

If he were anyone else, she would have believed she really heard him say, "Wouldn't have to," but he was the Doctor and he definitely didn't even think things like that. Besides, his lips didn't move. "So what do the aliens want now?" she asked.

"Don't care what they want," he grumbled. "What they're asking for is me to blow them up." He waved one of their electric sticks at her. He ran the sonic screwdriver over it, and grinned wildly. Then, he darted into the loo.

Fifteen seconds later, he came charging out, grabbed her hand, and threw his leather jacket over her shoulders. "That should protect you, as long as they don't touch you more than ten seconds," he said.

"What'd you do?" she demanded.

He launched into a non-sensical explanation of sonics, plumbing, electrical appliances, and special kinds of soap. "In other words?" she said.

"Boom," he replied, and grinned.

He threw open the door. "Ya might want to run," he told the first alien he saw. "This place's about to go up like a room full of nitro-glycerin." He pointed the sonic screwdriver behind them and, sure enough, the bathroom detonated. It seemed to start a chain reaction and there were several more detonations in rapid succession.

Hand in hand, laughing like maniacs, Rose and the Doctor ran for their lives.

* * *

Rose stood next to the Doctor at the TARDIS console, watching the aliens mill around their laboratory while it burnt. "Now, that's fantastic," she said.

"Yep," he agreed, and turned off the view screen, getting ready to set the coordinates.

"So, any other space cliches you want to show me?" she asked, cheekily.

He stared at her. "Such as?" he asked, after a moment of just looking at her like she was mad.

"Well, you know, there's alien abduction for experiments, we just did that one. There's the 'shag or die' theory, which I think we handled well. There's power mad aliens out to take over the world, we've already done that. There's time travel problems, done those. There's trapped and doomed, we do that quite a lot. Anything else?"

"Dunno," he said shortly. "What did you have in mind?"

"Does that last bit count as telepathy?" she mused, then chewed thoughtfully at her thumbnail.

He chuckled and his ears turned a bit pink, probably at how little she understood about something that made easy sense to him. "Don't be daft, Rose. Only an absolutely mad telepathic alien would peek into a human's mind, even by accident."

She felt like pouting. So humans were too weird for telepaths unless they were nuts, was that what he was saying? Never mind, this was meant to be fun. "Oh well, there's alien booze and/or scents that make you act funny."

"Huh. Well, there's some Shobogan ale in the kitchen, but I use it for cooking, and it hasn't bothered you yet."

She grinned. "So that's right out."

"Yeah, 'fraid so. Anything else you got?"

_Kept as an alien's love slave_, she thought, and chewed her lip. "Nah," she said. "I'm gonna go get a shower."

He shook his head at her. "Whatever you're thinking, Rose Tyler..." He grinned. "Go on, get changed. I'll see if I can't find a crazed alien king to rescue you from or something."

She grinned at him and danced off to get her shower.


	3. The Explanation

**As I am a professional writer and have work to do to get paid, I have decided to deal with these thudding plot bunnies in the traditional manner - I will inflict them on others. Please see my Profile for the Challenges of the Month. Brand new September challenges have been issued for your entertainment, education, and inspiration. If you'd rather do August's, instead, please feel free to do so. Thanks to all those who have participated thus far - I've REALLY enjoyed all the results. The new challenges will run through the end of September. Please let me know when you respond to a Challenge so I can read and review.**

_A/N: I really didn't intend to continue this one, I didn't. But then, another, relevant scenario, complete with solution, presented itself, the daft thing, and I couldn't resist. There may even be more after this, I dunno. As they come to me, then, I guess. As always, thanks to **Olfactory Ventriloquism** for beta-reading, encouragement, and clever repartee. Also for the title of this chapter, as she's fantastic like that!_

Chapter summary... Another classic scenario: Mix one loud-and-slapping-mum-in-a-track-suit, one pink-and-yellow human companion to the Last of the Time Lords, and one Estate full of unhelpful advice. Add a dash of Time-Lord-in-leather. Shake well. Duck and cover.

* * *

**The Scenario and the Solution**

_Part 3: The Explanation_

Just ten seconds, she'd told her mum and he had managed that, managed it well, in fact. One day and ten seconds was a vast improvement over twelve hours and twelve months, wasn't it? It had been weeks or maybe a couple of months for them, but what amount of time, if any, counted when you lived in a time traveling alien space ship?

Rose had let him off of the whole domestic day thing, didn't even want to try to drag him into it, after their last three adventures had been so hard for him. Last one, they'd ended up locked up by a bunch of aliens who wanted to see his reproductive practices. They'd put on a rather boring show - he'd touched her face, she'd had a nap - and then ended up having to blow up the aliens' lab anyway. No idea why, he never did tell her that.

Instead, she sat alone with her mum, having tea and listening to Powell Estate gossip, and generally deflecting the conversation any and every time it wandered back to her purported sex life. Mums weren't supposed to be curious about their kids' sex lives, at least not sane, normal mums. She was sure about that. She was also absolutely certain she wasn't concerned about her mum's sex life and, in fact, would pay good money, if she had any, not to hear about it, ever.

Basically, the fourth time her mum suggested that the Doctor was an alien pervert who kept her naked and enslaved on his ship to slake his inhuman lust on her fair, mortal flesh, Rose decided two things. First, she'd love to try to talk him into that. Mind, she'd probably have to get herself naked and enslaved, probably on several occasions, before he caught on. Second, she really wished she'd told her mum she would come home before she was forty instead of in ten seconds.

She deflected it gently by asking how Harriet was getting on. She found out, and it would probably please the Doctor to hear it, that the woman was an overnight success in politics, which meant the time line was on a nice, even keel.

Then, Jackie talked about how neither Rose nor Mickey nor even the Doctor were being given anything like credit for saving the world from Downing Street two days ago.

"Mind, we're also not getting any of the blame," Rose pointed out. "And I dunno about you, but I can't afford Downing Street. 'Magine it cost a mint."

Jackie humphed. "I'm just saying. Compensation, Rose. You need to think about that, 'cuz when he gets a new sex toy, you're gonna need something."

"I am NOT a sex toy!" Rose snapped.

"I know you're not, Rose, but I'm bettin' himself don't. He's a man. You show 'im a pair o' knickers he's never seen before and his brains short out. But once he gets 'em off a few times, he's bored and goes looking."

"I'm not shagging the Doctor," Rose said firmly.

"Yeah, you just keep tellin' me that, and I s'pose you think I'll believe you some day."

Then there was the phone call from Mickey. He'd apparently been down to the TARDIS and received his daily helping of abuse from the Doctor. Now he was alternating between asking her to come over and asking her what it was like to sleep with an alien.

Rose got terribly frustrated with him and told him to go shag Tricia Delaney, who he'd hated since grade school. "And I am not shagging the Doctor," she added, and slammed the phone into the cradle.

It rang again immediately, and Rose hoped it was the Doctor, calling to say the world would end if they didn't leave the planet in the next thirty seconds. It wasn't, it was Shireeen, and she was absolutely ecstatic when she heard Rose pick up.

"Heard you got a new man!" she exclaimed. "Jackie says he's a real piece of work, and Mickey said he's old enough to be your dad."

Old enough to be my ancestor, Rose thought, not that she cared. "He ain't my new man, he's the Doctor, we're just mates. We travel together is all."

"Bet you can't wait to change that."

Rose giggled guiltily. "Yeah, maybe."

"Hah," exclaimed Shireen, "so you ARE sleeping with 'im! How is he?"

Rose sighed.

After she managed to get rid of Shireen by giving her the number of her super phone and telling the girl she'd call her later, her mum called Mo and invited her over. And of course Jackie and Mo had a long, loud conversation about how sleeping with your boss never worked out.

"You'd both know!" she shrieked, and slammed the door of her room, and dug out some more of her clothes to take with her. Maybe she wouldn't come home for another couple years.

As Mo was leaving, Bev arrived, and she didn't let the closed door stop her from lecturing Rose at length about shagging older men and how she needed to at least make sure he bought her lots of gifts so she'd have stuff to pawn when she found out about his wife and six kids. That bit was exceptionally painful, because the Doctor probably had once had at least a wife, and probably a whole passel of kids, and they were all dead in a War that still gave him nightmares. Which meant that she could never, ever ask.

Once Bev was gone, her mum informed her that she'd invited her grandmother to tea. Rose seriously considered trying to take over the world herself so that the Doctor would have to stop her. She'd be easy to stop; all he'd have to do was get her out of here and promise not to bring her back no matter how she begged in fits of homesickness.

She helped straighten up the flat and prepared herself to endure the slightly senile accusations from her grandmother Prentice. Funny thing was, her grandmother was more likely to believe Rose was shagging an alien from outer space than that she wasn't shagging an older man.

She did indeed endure senile ramblings, but the accusations that she was a slut were mercifully punctuated by accusations that Jackie was also a slut. And Bev was a slut, and Mo, and Shireen, and Mickey, and anyone else who she could find a photo of in the flat, actually, because Gran prided herself on being able to tell a slut by looks alone.

By the end, rather than getting frustrated, Jackie and Rose were quietly teasing the woman, though she wouldn't know, tossing out various features of people they knew and knew of, just to see. So far, Harriet was also a slut, but the late PM was not, and also several famous people - though not Brittney Spears, surprisingly enough. "What about big ears?" Jackie asked, while Rose hid a laugh behind her hands.

"Nah, they're not sluts. That's the kind you really gotta watch out for. They wanna get married and have babies."

It stopped being funny right then, especially as Jackie looked horrified. Rose tried to hide under the table without looking like she was hiding, and went so far as to offer to clean up while Jackie walked Gran down to catch her bus.

* * *

The flat was tidy, Rose's bag was packed and next to the door, Shireen's new mobile number was in her back pocket, and Rose and Jackie were saying their goodbyes. The front door was open behind them, as Rose was hoping to make it quick.

"You be careful, Rose," Jackie cautioned.

"I will, Mum," she promised. "The Doctor takes good care of me."

"That's what I'm talking about, Rose. You make sure you use protection with that one. God knows how his babies would come out. I know you might be having a good time, but you'll regret it if you end pregnant with alien sprogs."

"I'm not shagging the Doctor," Rose said, one last time, and she really, really, really couldn't take it any more.

"Right," said Jackie, and rolled her eyes. "And why would I believe that?"

Something snapped. "You're right," Rose said. "Why would you believe it? Ok, Mum, I'll just tell ya. Yes, I'm shagging the Doctor. And he's an alien. I have sex, with an alien, any time I want, and I really, REALLY like it." She shivered involuntarily as her imagination supplied a couple of ideas to go with her tirade. "It's good. It's really good, Mum, best sex you can possibly imagine, and then some, and I get it any time I want, any where I want, and any way I want, and it's fantastic! We do run around the ship naked sometimes, can't help it, and did you know the ears are a sign of virility where he comes from? I can't imagine what I was thinking all day, tellin' you about the places we been and the worlds we saved and all the good we done, when all you really wanted to hear about was your daughter shagging a nine hundred year old alien. Oh, an' he ain't all that different, either, just so you know. Any other questions you don't really want to know the answers to?"

There was a noise from behind her and Rose felt her heart stop. Slowly, desperately hoping she was wrong, she turned her head.

"Ya done?" asked the Doctor.

"Yeah," she said, softly, and couldn't look up to meet his blue eyes if her life depended on it. "Think so."

"Good," he said. "Came ta tell ya we needed to go because something alien's come up on the TARDIS sensors, but given that speech o' yours, I think I might better rephrase that. This yours?"

"Yeah," said Rose as he picked up her bags and loped out the door. Rose chewed her lip and turned back to make sure Jackie Tyler's silence didn't indicate anything sinister. Her mum had apparently been replaced by a marble statue of her mum, because she wasn't moving or even blinking. Possibly, she had even forgotten to breathe. Rose waved a hand in front of Jackie's face and her mum shook herself.

"Right," she said. "I love you. You have a good time, stay safe, and call me more often. And tell himself to come to tea next time." And then she walked back into the living room and turned on the telly. The entire tirade had apparently been edited out of her memory.

Rose just wished she could edit it out of her own. "Bye, Mum. Love you."

She left the flat, walked dazedly down the stairs and got to the end of the walkway when she found the Doctor stopped, leaning heavily against the building and breathing hard. "Um..." she said cautiously. "You all right?"

"Don't do something like that again," he ordered.

"Sorry," she apologized, utterly chastened. Mind, she didn't know what he had to complain about, but then he was very much into his dignity. She risked a small peek at him, her cheeks still smoldering.

"Don't have ta apologize," he said, kindly, and pushed a lock of her hair back behind her ear. "I just almost broke a rib trying not ta laugh."

"Oh," she said, and that actually made her blush brighter.

"Just one thing," he added, hoisting her bags again.

"Yeah, what is it?"

"Who the hell told you the thing about the ears?" He shot her that broad, brilliant, daft grin she loved so much, and then turned and headed off for the TARDIS, whistling.

Took her a second to place the song. When she realized it was My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose, she decided no one would convict her if she murdered him.


	4. The Implication

**For Rent**:_ 1 Author, slightly used. Includes 5000 words, usual talent, unusual option to offer prompt of your choice. Bid early and often! Link to Support Stacie! on my profile page. Notes: Slightly cracked around the edges._

**As I am a professional writer and have work to do to get paid, I have decided to deal with these thudding plot bunnies in the traditional manner - I will inflict them on others. Please visit my Profile Page for the Challenges of the Month. This month's April Challenges have been added because I finally found my round tuit. The new challenges will run through the end of April. Please let me know when you respond to a Challenge so I can read and review. I will also be linking them on my LJ in the future!**

Special thanks to OV for the fantastic beta work - and the idea. -winks-

_Chapter Summary: This incendiary delicacy requires little prep time and minimal ingredients. However, the results are sure to please. Take one Time Lord in leather. To obtain the desired concentration, add one pink-and-yellow human female, previously seasoned with boredom. For best results, serve under a TARDIS console._

* * *

**The Scenario and the Solution**

_Part 4: The Implication_

"Doctor, can I have that?" Rose asked.

The Doctor was flat on his back under the console, the sleeves on his jumper rolled up, and his arms buried to the elbow in wire. There was no way he even wanted to know what Rose wanted at the moment. He was simply too busy. "Guess so," he murmured.

Rose must not have heard him, because she continued talking. "I wouldn't ask, but I'm really, really bored and I'm liable to get myself into trouble if I don't find something to do."

Wasn't sure what she meant by that, really. Even Rose would have a hard time finding a way to get herself hurt or killed on the TARDIS. Plus, they were firmly stuck in the Vortex until he got this finished. "Go swimming," the Doctor suggested.

"Not in the mood," Rose replied, and there was something decidedly petulant in her tone. She seemed to shake it off, though, because her next sentence came out thoughtful and musing. "I'm in one of those moods, you know, where there's nothing you really want to do and you've done everything usual you can come up with, and you just start getting bad ideas."

The Doctor paused in his work while his brain took a very short trip in the direction of the nearest gutter, but he tugged it back because Rose was still talking.

"Just… craving. Can't seem to help it, really."

That gutter was starting to look really appealing, the Doctor decided. He and Rose could roll around in it for awhile and…

Bad Doctor.

He'd missed what exactly she was craving, if she'd even said, due to his consciousness trying to take a hike on him. That didn't stop him from wishing he could fill in the blanks with his own ideas.

…"And I guess, sometimes, I just miss it…"

"I'll get you anything you want, 'cept tea at your mum's, once I'm done here," the Doctor promised. He meant it, too, Vortex help him. Anything to see her smile, hear her laugh, watch her…

Stop that.

"Why not tea at Mum's?" Rose wondered.

"Lost the coordinates," the Doctor muttered. At least the thought of Jackie Tyler made it easier to concentrate on what Rose was saying. Not to mention more necessary. He was _not_ going to be tricked into agreeing to spend one minute with that woman.

"Doesn't matter," Rose said, morosely.

The Doctor carefully tilted his head toward his shoes so he could look at Rose's sandled toes. Today, the nails were painted red. "You all right?" he asked gruffly. Didn't want to let on how concerned he was that she was starting to get unhappy living here.

"Yeah, just…" Rose made a noise of frustration or exasperation. "You're the last person I should be explaining this to. Besides, you're busy even if…" Another growl of complaint. "Sorry, Doctor."

"Rose?" the Doctor asked, strongly considering that it might be a good idea to come out now, before Rose got any more upset and demanded to be taken home. He didn't think she was that bored, yet, but a quick break with a friend couldn't hurt her. Then again, if he didn't come out, they could go somewhere else once he found this problem, and he could always claim he never heard her.

"I'd be fine, I'm sure, if you could just _take_ me somewhere."

Oh, he could take her somewhere, all right. In the jump seat. Against a wall. Her bed. His bed – he had one around here somewhere. The kitchen table. The kitchen floor. The gardens. He could think of fifty three different ways to take her in the library and that wasn't even concentrating.

"...could just _do_ it…"

"Fifty four," he murmured out loud.

"Sorry, Doctor," Rose said again, and she sounded mortified.

He hadn't, once again, heard a word she was saying, so he just said, "It's all right, Rose. Whatever you want."

What would she want, anyway? Soft and gentle kisses, candlelight, classical music? Or steel hard and breathless in between bouts of running for their lives. Maybe she'd want to be in charge. Maybe she'd want…

"…just put something in my mouth to shut me up…"

The Doctor's brain went "foop" and made a funny, squeakish sound before it tried to restart from third gear without a clutch. "Rose?" he said.

"So, Doctor, can I have this?"

"Anything you want," he pledged devoutly. Oh, _any_thing. He looked away from the wires again because he felt her move closer. Couldn't possibly… not really… maybe…

She bent over him.

_Please…_

Her hands reached for his waist.

Ohpleaseohpleaseohplease…

The Doctor felt her fingers whisper across the denim at his hips. He was fairly sure that he shifted his body slightly into her touch. He was going to combust. And then he realized that her fingers, while dangerously close, did not seem to be paying any attention to the part of him he was forcing down through will alone. Those devilish fingers honed in on his pocket and snagged the banana he had stashed there.

Rose tilted a little further so he could see her face at last. She gave him a sunny, upside down smile. "Thanks," she said happily.

Then, she sauntered off. The Doctor heard every single foot fall, heard the console room door close like the pearly gates, Heaven on the other side, him on this one. He banged his head repeatedly back onto the decking. "Randy old bastard," he muttered to himself.

"…I really need one…" came Rose's voice down the corridor.

He was really going to have to talk to her about making her random comments less inappropriate. Or appropriate, really, in the wrong way.

"Seriously, Doctor," she shouted, "you have got to try this!"

_Really._


	5. The Concoction

**********As I am a professional writer and have work to do to get paid, I have decided to deal with these thudding plot bunnies in the traditional manner - I will inflict them on others. Please see my Profile for the Challenges of the Month. This month's June Challenges have been added because June's a good month for a change. The new challenges will run through the end of June. If you'd prefer to do May's, feel free. Please let me know when you respond to a Challenge so I can read and review. I will also be linking them on my LJ in the future!**

Special thanks to OV for the beta work.

_Chapter Summary: A true favorite, sure to please a crowd! Season one Time Lord in leather with "The Concoction". Place one pink-and-yellow human female in serving cell. Add previously prepared Time Lord. Stir in aliens. Add secret ingredient. Run for the hills._

* * *

**The Concoction**

The door to Rose's cell flew open and she darted toward it, determined to punch, kick, scratch, and even bite her way out if she had to do. She had to rescue the Doctor; there was no telling what these aliens had done to him by now.

Three extremely tall, chlorine green aliens caught her and held her. A fourth draped a bundle of leather and denim from his shoulder over the narrow camp bed that was one of the only two pieces of furniture in the whole cell. "Doctor!" Rose shrieked.

"Oolg," said the Doctor.

"What have you done to him?!" Rose demanded of the aliens. "What the hell do you even _want_?"

"We want the secret," said the one who had carried the Doctor. "He will give it to us. It is only a matter of time."

Rose kicked at that alien until the three who held her lifted her up and tossed her onto the cot on top of the Doctor. His arm snapped up around her waist but other than that, he didn't move, didn't say a word, didn't even open his eyes.

Rose scrambled frantically for purchase to get off the Time Lord and go slightly murder the things who had done this to him, but it was too late. The Doctor was holding her steady and the aliens had made good their withdrawal. Rose looked down at the Doctor, to find him in possibly the worst condition she'd ever seen him in after someone had had a go at him.

"I'll only kill 'em a little," Rose muttered darkly.

"How d'ya do that, then?" the Doctor asked in a faint, dreamy sort of voice.

Rose pushed herself up with her elbows against the cot, worked her knees up until she was straddling the Doctor's hips, and peered down into his drawn, pale, and sweating face. No change. "Doctor?" she whispered. When she got no response, she sighed. "Oh, Doctor," she said softly, tenderly, sadly. The Doctor made a strangled noise at the sound of his name and struggled beneath her. What had they done to him?

"You'll have to let me go," Rose told him gently, trying her best to be comforting. "M'ok, now. Just let me move an' I'll let you breathe."

The Doctor only groaned in response to that and, any other time, Rose's mind would have darted straight to the nearest gutter and gone in with a swan dive. That_ sound_... She shook her head firmly. This definitely wasn't the time for her silly human fantasies. Never mind how perfect the position was for them. She would worry about that later. Maybe in a warm bath.

The Doctor's arm slowly relaxed and Rose carefully clambered to her feet. She had to wedge her knee between his thighs at one point (think about that later, too) and he writhed in what was probably fear. No bloke wanted anyone's knees that close to sensitive anatomy.

"Budge," Rose said, when she was finally standing. She prodded gently at the Doctor's side. He wriggled a bit to give her some room, then muttered some untranslated complaint when she settled down next to him and turned toward his face. She needed to watch him to be sure he was going to be all right. Her shirt sleeve would have to do in lieu of a handkerchief, and he turned his face in to her touch with every stroke.

Once his face was clear of the obvious sweat, Rose reached behind her for the coarse woolen blanket that had been laying across the foot of the narrow camp bed. Her hand encountered denim on several occasions, but not the blanket. With a frustrated snort, she turned her head to look for the thing, her hand on the Doctor's thigh for balance.

"No idea what you're lookin' for there, but it's a little bit further up."

Blanket forgotten in the face of that absolutely incredible pronouncement, Rose's head whipped around so she could stare at the Doctor. She lost her tentative balance in her haste and slipped the short distance to the floor, bruising her bum mildly and her dignity severely.

"Ouch," she said, forcing herself to her feet.

The Doctor's eyes flew open as she leaned over to check him for the very likely bump on his head. The usual piercing blue had gone a foggy, murky sort of grey and had a distinctly unfocused quality as he peered at her blankly. "Rose?"

Rose grinned in relief. If he was awake, if he was at least aware enough to recognize her, he could probably recover quickly and work on a way to get them out of here. That was especially important, since she needed to murder the aliens a little for hurting him. "Doctor!" she exclaimed, practically singing his name in her joy.

"Oh good, you remember my name." He grinned suddenly and, if he had been anyone else, Rose would have found it completely wicked. "Make sure you scream it really loudly, later, yeah?"

Dark and alarming suspicions tumbled through Rose's head, especially as the Doctor's dazed but smug expression was almost immediately replaced by dazed bewilderment. "Doctor?"

"When we're runnin', right?" he said softly.

"Oh, right," Rose agreed, trying not to acknowledge that even she could hear the disappointment in her voice. Stupid human, of course he didn t mean... "What did they do to you?" she asked plaintively.

He blinked a few times, then licked his lips. "Ah," he said. "Not good."

"What?"

"They've given me somethin'. Feels like a dual-active compound. Two effects," he added, rolling his eyes like she'd just done something abysmally stupid, possibly in response to her look. It was meant to be incredulous (she knew what dual-active was, thank you, how hard could _that_ be?) but he'd apparently taken it wrong. Stupid Time Lord. "One ta make me talk, an' the other ta make me tell the truth when I talk."

"Not good," Rose agreed, though she wasn't sure how not good it was exactly.

His grin came up again, then, brilliant and self-satisfied. "But they don't know 'bout my superior Time Lord physiology. S'pose they're waitin' 'til it's taken full effect, but by the time they come back, I'll've metabolized it." He tried to sit up, fell back down and looked at the room as if it had mortally offended him. "Rose, tell the bloody cell ta hold still, would ya?"

"Just lie down, Doctor," she soothed. "I'm sure your modest Time Lord superiority will handle it fine from that angle."

"Most people, ya show 'em all of time an' space, and they're excited, thrilled, never heard of anything better. Not you, Rose Tyler, you gotta have time, and space, and chips." He mimicked her voice rather well despite his accent, and in a bored tone, said, "Oh, sure, it's great, Doctor, alien planet, no human's ever seen it, where's the fried potatoes?"

Rose, knowing she could never take him too seriously, or risk losing sight of the person under all the wonder and rain, didn't say that. Instead, she gave him an arch look. "Didn't know ya could do voices. D'you have any more tricks?"

He snorted, then grinned at her, mischief like a beacon despite the dazed shadow of eyes. "I can do many impressive things, Rose Tyler."

Rose grinned back for as long as she dared to meet his eyes, then looked around the cell and finally spotted the blanket on the floor at the end of the bed. The Doctor blithely started to lecture on the various advantages to Time Lord biology, so Rose knew for sure that the talking part of the compound was working. He never talked, especially not when they were imprisoned. It had taken her a day and a half (not to mention the tantrum and a half) to even get what the last aliens wanted out of him.

"...Biochemicals that can lessen reactions ta certain things. Or enhance 'em, if I want."

Rose shook the blanket out and filed the expression he made as he said that under "things to have intense dreams about on my own time".

"...Can hold me breath for upwards of fifteen minutes. Lotsa ways that could be useful, I think..."

Rose ignored him and firmly refused to look at him while she was at it. He babbled on and on and _on_ while she meticulously checked the blanket for bugs.

"...Next ta no refractory period. That's the two hearts again, an' it might come in handy someday, I hope..."

Her hands were shaking as she draped the blanket over the Doctor's body. TMI, she thought. _Way_ too much information.

"Thanks for this, you always take such fantastic care o' me." Rose dared to shoot him a quick glance, but he had his strangely innocent look on this time, the one that would probably get her into trouble until the day she died. How could a man who looked forty and was nine hundred possibly manage such childlike sweetness in his expression? She looked away when his smile started to grow wider. "I really like it. I wonder..."

There was a slapping sound and Rose looked up to discover that the Doctor had his hand over his mouth. His eyes were wide, even if they were distinctly glazed over.

"Take it the runnin' on at the mouth is a side effect?" Rose asked.

He shook his head and slowly moved his hand, as if afraid he'd need to put it back very, very quickly. "It's the intended effect. I guess so I'll tell 'em whatever they want ta know. But they didn't ask, jus' said 'the secret', an' if I told 'em ev'ry secret I knew, they'd be there for years an' still none the wiser."

"That's true," Rose cut him off. "But it doesn't all work on you, right? Even if you're talking, it doesn't have to be true, what you say I mean?"

"Hope not," the Doctor said. "That'd be really bad. Can ya 'magine someone getting me ta tell 'em everythin' I know? I'd start with somethin' stupid an' by the time I got done with silly trivia an' maybe the history of a couple planets no one's heard of, they'd be long dead an' never get ta hear my biscuit recipes or sordid sexual fantasies.

"Is _that_ a side effect?" Rose asked.

"What?" the Doctor wanted to know.

Rose decided it might be safer not to enlighten him that he'd talked more about... that... in the last ten minutes than he had in the entire time she'd known him put together. "Anything else I ought to know?"

"I want to drag you down onto this bed and do things ta you that'll make you weak in the knees jus' remembering them." His eyes danced and laughed as he said this, so Rose knew one thing for sure, now, maybe two.

One, it seemed the drug was turning him into an incorrigible flirt. Two, the truth telling part probably wasn't working. Maybe she'd best test it anyway, just to be sure.

"What do you really think of my mum?" Rose asked innocently.

The Doctor gave her a dirty look, an annoyed dirty look though, this time. In the most sarcastic tone she had ever heard out of him (even in Mickey's presence), he said, "Oh I'm absurdly fond of the woman. It's possible I'm a masochist or a martyr, but I can't seem ta help it. She's just a bit fantastic, really. Crazy as hell, o' course, but..."

Rose smiled. "All right," she said with fond resignation, "you answered my question, you can stop."

Obviously, the truth telling bit wasn't working at all, not if he could claim to like her mother. "You gonna be all right?" she asked after a bit.

"Sure I'll be as all right as I ever am, once the building stops bouncin' around an' everything. Sit down, you'll be more comfortable, and it's easier ta... ah, better change the subject now.

Rose looked around while he found a subject that didn't make his ears turn pink and kept talking. She decided to settle herself next to him on the cot; wasn't anything else she could do, really. Except wait.

* * *

"...Constellation of Kasterborous. Well, technically, its Kasterborous the Time Keeper, looks a bit like an hour glass. Couldn't see it from there o' course, Trihedron's the central grouping, so... What?"

Rose, who had been listening intently to his catalog of interstellar cartography, blinked what she was sure was a very funny expression from her face. "Nothing," she said with a shake of her head. "So, why's it called Trihedron?"

"Used to be a trinary star system, long story, that... what?"

"What, what?"

"Rose Tyler, I can read most o' the expressions on your face, tell what you're thinkin', just from the look in your eyes. Don't even have ta check your biochemicals, though that's interesting sometimes, if a bit confusin'. But usually, it's easier jus' to..."

"Right," Rose interrupted, disbelieving, "what'm I thinkin' now, then?" She concentrated very hard on keeping a straight face while allowing one of her silly human fantasies to run a little amok through her head.

"Minx," the Doctor complained.

Rose had no idea whether that meant he could tell or not. "Readin' minds is cheating, Doctor."

"Wasn't readin' your mind, Rose, I always ask unless..." He rubbed a hand over his forehead and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Damn aliens. Anyway, you had that pretty, wistful look on your face, all far away an' happy. Am I boring you?"

"No!!" she denied vehemently, then winced as he did at her possibly too sharp exclamation. "No, Doctor, never." He gave her a dubious look, and she smiled. "Seriously. I was just thinking... you never talk about that stuff, hardly talk about anything personal, so it's kinda nice..." She chewed her lip at his thoughtful expression. "Not that I mind," she said urgently.

The Doctor chuckled, a warm dark sound that made shivers try to run up her spine. The hand she was holding caressed hers gently and caused more shivers. He seemed - had he? had she? - one of them was definitely closer. "Rose Tyler, if I told you half the things that go through my mind, you'd run screamin' home to your mother."

Rose had absolutely no idea what he meant by that, not really, but her body very much liked the conclusion it came to. Something clenched inside and her knickers were suddenly a little less comfortable. The Doctor's nostrils flared and his eyes went wide. "Although..." he murmured, and his voice sounded like liquid sin.

The cell door thumped open. Rose decided she now had a perfectly good excuse to kill the aliens three quarters of the way dead. The Doctor's eyes had gone shuttered again, his body held stiffly away from hers, for all that they were so close. "What?" she demanded rudely.

The Doctor started rattling off the process for making jelly babies. Rose turned to stare at him, alarmed. He looked even more blank than he had when the aliens first dragged him in here. However, one murky blue eye winked at her. She grinned back, the grin she saved just for him.

"...the extruder... one o' these days, you're gonna do that an'... where was I... oh, right. Jelly babies."

"He is ready to give the secret now," one of the large chlorine aliens said. "Take him."

"No!" Rose shrieked, standing up to throw herself between the aliens and her fragile, drugged Doctor. Every single time he tried to sit up, he complained about the cell spinning. She supposed someone who could feel the world turning under his feet would find any disruption in his equilibrium extremely disconcerting. She put her hands on her hips and did her best street-urchin-from-hell impression. "You lot wanna question him, you do it right here where I can watch."

"That's my girl," the Doctor said.

Rose wondered wistfully if he knew how right he was.

"Mine, mine, mine... land mine," he added.

"The secret!" the shortest of the three aliens demanded.

* * *

Two and a half hours later, the Doctor had given them the eleven herbs and spices in KFC, the formula to Harry Ramsden's fish batter, the secret ingredients in twenty-six different kinds of fizzy colas, the location of the Holy Grail (his coat pocket, but not the coat he was wearing), and the locations of three dozen other "missing" treasures. Strangely, more than half of them had been blown up. He had confessed that King Arthur had died in the final battle, and that several very popular celebrities in several different times and places were actually aliens in disguise. He had explained in detail that breaking out of Alcatraz wasn't the problem, it was breaking in in the first place that really killed you. He had revealed the answer to life, the Universe, and everything - 42.

The aliens were not impressed.

"Reveal the secret now, or harm will come to the female!"

"You touch her, you so much as look at her in a way I don't like, and the whole cosmos will tremble at the memory of your fate for centuries to come," the Doctor replied. He didn't sound threatening, didn't even twitch an eyebrow. He was utterly matter of fact about it. It was a little chilling, if a little arousing, to hear it.

"Is she yours, then?" the alien questioned intently.

"Yes," the Doctor replied simply. Rose didn't have it in her to object that she was hers, thanks ever so. Especially not with that look on his face.

"Then you will seek to protect her. What is the secret?!"

The Doctor started to say something - heaven alone knew what - but Rose had had enough.

"You know, you're gonna have to be a little more specific, here, dammit. If my life's on the line, now, I get to make the rules, right? An' rule one is you gotta actually tell him what you want. What the hell secret do you need? Haven't you figured it out yet? He knows everything, obviously, except one thing that isn't important, so don't you think you could kinda narrow it down? Before we all get old? What planet's your stupid secret come from? Is it history or food or myth or legend? Animal, vegetable, mineral? Anything?? Am I gettin' through t'ya at all??"

The aliens were stunned utterly speechless. "Looks like you could talk for days, too," the Doctor observed as she stood there, breathing hard and considering furthering her tirade with a few well-positioned slaps.

"Looks like," Rose agreed weakly. She smiled slowly at his brilliant grin as he patted the bed next to him. Sitting down gingerly, she was surprised but gratified to find his arm wrapped around her waist.

"Think you get that from your mum," he said. "Strong personality, her. S'one of the things I admire about the woman, but don't you dare tell her I said that."

Rose shook her head, disbelieving. "I'd never," she admitted. "She'd never believe me, anyway."

The Doctor nodded agreement, his grin widening. "You're better looking when you're angry, though," he added. "I mean, better than your mum. You're always beautiful, of course, even in the mornings when you just wake up, and I was just wondering. What don't I know?"

The whole thing had been too fast for Rose to process it properly, but the last registered well enough to bring a blush to her cheeks. "Never mind," she said softly, as grateful as she could possibly be that the Doctor had been given the truth drug and not her, since it would have worked on her very well.

"You can tell me, Rose," he coaxed persuasively, blue eyes still gray, but twinkling brightly. "Don't friends tell each other secrets?"

Rose sighed. "Yeah, they do. So, you gonna tell me a secret if I tell you one?"

"Sure," he agreed. "My secret is that these stupid drugs aren't wearing off as fast as I'd like."

"Ah," she said. "That's never good, is it?"

"Nope."

Rose sighed, then started thinking fast. What secret could she tell him that wouldn't get her dumped back down on the Powell Estate faster than you could say TARDIS?

She decided to forgive the aliens for most everything when they suddenly finished their conference and approached the bed, practically on tenterhooks. "We're sorry!!" one of them practically wailed. The others made various squeaking noises of agreement.

Rose wasn't sure if this was normal for their kind and looked to the Doctor for advice. He looked rather alarmed, and shrugged at her, then gestured her toward them, as if wailing aliens was her department or something. "Bloody hell," she muttered, "this was never in my job description."

She handed out tissues from her pocket (where were they earlier when she needed them, then?). After that, she distributed pats and shushes and listened sympathetically to various moans and complaints. These included, "never any good at threatening people," and "why can't we all get along?" and, her personal favorite, "you're a very nice scary person."

Eventually, she'd got them calmed down enough to talk. "We need the secret to the magical potion," the leader of the group said. "We've been trying to reproduce it for months, and have had no results. We thought, we hoped, when we heard the male talking so knowledgeably about our planet, that he would know. We didn't know he knew everything. How do you keep all that information in a tiny skull?"

True, the chlorine aliens heads were quite a bit larger than hers. "S'bigger on the inside," Rose commented dryly, while the Doctor glowered at her ferociously. She stuck her tongue out at him, and his hand was over his mouth again for some reason. She turned back to the aliens. "Where'd you get the potion, what does it do?"

"The potion came to us from Earth, brought by explorers who looked like yourselves. We must have it. It is this potion we feed the children to achieve the fine healthy skin-tones you see we have. But we have almost run out and they're all nutrient deficient and rather more grey than green. We apologize for the terrible treatment we have subjected you to, but we are desperate. You must help us!"

The Doctor and Rose looked at each other and Rose could see that their speech had definitely effected him. She sighed. It effected her, too. "Got a bottle of it or something?" she suggested.

"They're using it like a cosmetic, yeah?" Rose asked as one of the aliens scampered off to retrieve the bottle.

"Or like royal jelly for honeybees," the Doctor replied with a shrug. Then, he wandered off on a tangent about native and non-native Earth honeybee species.

The chlorine green alien reappeared with the bottle and Rose nearly choked. It was recognizable from a distance, of course, just one of those things you were used to, growing up where she did. Of course, it also made her want to gag, because she just happened to be one of the people in the world who utterly detested the stuff. "You're so kidding me!" she exclaimed, feeling like she might turn a bit chlorine green herself at any moment.

"Guess not," the Doctor replied cheerfully.

"But it's... oh, god, Doctor, it's awful!"

"Bet Rickey loves it."

"You heard what was in his cupboards," Rose replied. "He'll eat anything. You can't let them do this to children!"

He chuckled. "They obviously like it," he answered.

"Do you even know the secret formula? It's s'posed to be, well, you know, secret."

He stared at her. "Rose Tyler, I can tell ya what's in Coca-Cola an' you don't believe I know this? I was there when they invented the stuff. 1902. Good year." He looked up at the aliens and grinned broadly. "Someone get me a pen and paper," he said. "This'll prob'ly take a bit."

Rose looked at the bottle, at the Doctor, at the relieved looking chlorine aliens, and sighed. Of all the things in the Universe. She shook her head, stifling the urge to laugh. Who knew, really. She watched as the aliens admired the dark bottle with its distinctive red and yellow label and realized the Universe was even stranger than she'd ever imagined.

She'd just been threatened with death, after all. Over a bottle of marmite.

* * *

After that, it was a simple matter of the Doctor explaining his notes, and then the aliens released them with many apologies and, for some reason, quite a few small trinkets that the Doctor immediately stuffed into his pockets. She'd never got to see the little statuettes and now she probably never would, since anything that ended up in his coat was likely gone forever.

They walked back to the TARDIS hand in hand, but Rose couldn't help thinking back on the whole situation. "Did you get rid of the drugs?" she asked.

"Finally," the Doctor said. "Was a right mess, that, an' not one I ever want ta repeat. Sorry if I talked your ear off."

"I didn't mind," Rose assured him. "But I been thinking."

He opened the door to the TARDIS and let her enter ahead of him. "Yeah?"

"Well, it's just... the truth drug didn't work on you, yeah, but the talking drug did. How's that?'

"I never had a chance to analyze either of the drugs, Rose," he apologized.

"Yeah, see, that's what I thought. And then I got to wondering. How would I even know if the truth drug didn't work on you, anyway? I mean, brain the size of yours, clever as you are? It's exactly what you said earlier, right? Just 'cuz you have to tell the truth, what's to stop you telling all kinds of things so no one ever figures it out?"

The Doctor grinned down at her, his eyes finally back to their usual crystalline blue, glittering and sparkling in the TARDIS light. He winked at her, then kissed her forehead. "Rose Tyler, where do you get these ideas?"


	6. The Situation

This Recipe for Disaster/Scenario and Solution is presented in honor of the birthday of **IsistheSphinx**. Isis, who gave me the idea for "Wayward Son", reviews all my stories, and worked with us on the October Project, is a great friend to have. In honor of her day, then, I give you...

**

* * *

The Situation**

To properly serve this exciting treat, you will need a special ingredient. Carefully prepare one ex-Time Agent with movie star looks as per the recipe for "Early Captain Jack". Put a mixture of one pink-and-yellow-human and one Time-Lord-in-leather in an enclosed space until the UST rises. Add the Early Captain Jack. Divide. Flee.

* * *

Avalon was a beautiful planet. Jack could concede that much. Still, there were very few planets in the Universe that could be found to be wholly unlovely, and when you had someone with you like his new traveling companions, that figure disappeared to none at all. Rose could find beauty in anything, and the Doctor's intelligent Ship apparently only landed in places that Rose would probably like (at least once they got over the running like hell and exploding things bit).

Jack was a tiny bit over one hundred percent certain that that had something to do with the fact that the pilot was utterly besotted with the 21st century Earth girl.

Still, while the planet's beauty was the excuse he gave for coming here, it had nothing to do with what he really wanted. What he wanted, what he had tried every single one of the thirty-seven times he had come here, was to get into the cloistered panties of the Rapunzel-like princess who was trapped in the tower at the heart of Avalon's capital city.

The only reason he wanted to do it was that it couldn't be done. The reason it couldn't be done was that there were two problems and they were both major. The first was that the Princess was trapped. It wasn't that Jack couldn't get through all the defenses surrounding her - he could, and get out again, too. But the defenses guarding her were also guarded, by a massive computer that couldn't be deceived. And the only people eligible to get past the computer to run the gauntlet that surrounded the girl were "qualified" persons. Which Jack, obviously, was not. The second problem, of course, was that the qualified person who managed to get through the maze of traps and rescue the princess was expected to marry the girl. Which Jack, obviously, was not.

He knew every single thing possible about getting into and out of the palace, now. He'd gotten as far as the door to the woman's boudoir a couple of visits back, for him (which was several generations back for them), so he'd seen every single aspect of the system on his way in. Jack was pretty sure he finally had just the helpers to make sure his plan worked. Plus, there was a bonus if this succeeded.

Jack hadn't been with Rose and the Doctor for very long (according to his mostly broken wrist computer, it had been a week since they rescued him from his stolen Chula ship), but the unresolved sexual tension between the two of them had already started to get to him. He suspected he was allergic to wholesomeness, and the purity of chaste, unconsummated love was going to give him hives.

Or kill his libido, which was much worse.

He worked it all out meticulously in his head, and it made absolutely exquisite sense. Rose, of course, couldn't abide injustice, and the Doctor had this strange sort of knight errant complex that made him perfect for this role. It would have to be done exactly right, of course, the words perfect, the timing impeccable. Only the very best in the Universe would be able to pull this off.

He was Captain Jack Harkness. It didn't get better than that.

And the "Last of the Time Lords" was certain to be "qualified."

* * *

Jack found Rose frowning into a drink in an outdoor cafe. "Hey, Rosie, where's the Doc?"

Rose sighed, then smiled a warm welcome at him as she nudged a scroll-work chair out for him with her foot. Every time she smiled, Jack envied the Doctor just a lot. "Dunno," she said. "Think he broke Rule One. Mind, as soon as something blows up, I'll get told off for 'wanderin' off' and 'bein' jeopardy friendly'." She made an adorably gruff face and mocked a semblance of the Doctor's accent to boot.

Jack laughed as he collapsed into the chair. "You guys are just cute!" he said, shaking his head. "What're you drinking? I'll get the next one." Considering her half-full glass, he made a face. "Or something better, if you prefer."

"Would you?" she said. "Dunno what this is. Ant spray an' bromide, I think, an' those are just the good bits."

Jack waved a server over with a casual hand, ordered the local best - his pronunciation made Rose screw up her face in concentration - and smirked at her. He didn't want to get the girl drunk - that would be very, very wrong, and besides the Doctor would kill him. For all his grinning and manic giddiness, the Doctor gave the distinct impression of one who could easily kill someone fifty different ways... at a time.

They made small talk about the planet, and then, to make Jack's day absolutely perfect, Rose asked, "What's with that tower?" She gestured off across the stark white city, to where the gold and white spire loomed far above the whole world strung out below it.

"They keep the princess there," he said, casually, as if he hadn't been waiting for just such an opening.

"Oh," she said. Then, she did an adorable double-take. "Wait, what do you mean 'keep'? Is it like some kind of sanctuary, or is it a prison?"

"Looks like a perfect gilded cage to me," Jack said. "They do this to one girl in every generation. Lock her up from the day she reaches sexual maturity until the day someone rescues her and marries her."

Rose chewed at her lip, her head tilted in thought. "The girls - do they go for this? I mean, I know I wouldn't, but then they're raised to it... I dunno. It all sounds completely dodgy, Jack."

Jack shrugged artfully. "Yeah, but Rose, it's like you said, they've been brought up like this. I wouldn't let it worry me, if I were you. Besides, it's not like we can do anything about it."

Now Rose frowned at him, the light of battle coming up in her dark eyes. Jack suppressed a grin. "Jack, they don't know any better. How can a girl decide if she approves of something if she doesn't know there's anything else? What about the other girls on this planet? Do they all get locked up?"

"No, of course not," Jack said. "This is a human colony, Rose. You of all people know that human women don't tolerate suppression by their men for very long. Honestly, I'm surprised this fairytale princess routine has survived this long. It's probably what you said. The girls just don't know any better, probably consider it an honor to be chosen."

Now, Rose's eyes blazed with fury. "You mean, it's just some random girl dragged in, not one born with her arse on purple cushions? Taken away from her family, no choices?"

"Well, sure. And whichever man 'rescues' her will be the leader of the people for the next term. I think it's like thirty years or something. They can get divorced after that if they want."

Rose was in a towering temper now. Jack clutched at her arm and had to struggle to keep her quiet as he dragged her around the corner into a more private alleyway. He'd wanted her annoyed, but he hadn't realized she'd feel this strongly about it. "Oh, sure. She wastes her childhood locked in this tower and her youth being this bloke's legitimacy, an' then when he's done with her, he just throws her away? Oh, hell no. It's got to be stopped, at least this once. We're here, we can fix it."

Put that way, Jack actually realized that Rose had a point. This poor kid, locked up for life... Made him seem like a prick, really, for just wanting to seduce her. He reminded himself that his plot had always included helping the girl run away, preferably with all of them financially better off. The Doctor had an expensive hobby in the form of keeping his ship running, after all, and it might be a way Jack could help pay him back for letting the ex-Time Agent stay. Plus, if it worked perfectly, it would also get the Doctor and Rose sorted, a distinct bonus. So he wasn't being a complete bastard, not really.

"If I could just get in there, talk to the girl," Rose said thoughtfully.

The Doctor was going to kill him, Jack realized. The Doctor was going to kill him, bring him back to life, and kill him again. He'd known a torturer who could do that to people, after all, and "the Doctor" probably wasn't just an affectation. "Maybe that's not such a good idea..."

"Don't be a plum, Jack. I'm a big girl, I can look after myself. Look, how would you get in? You've been here before, right?"

"Well, yeah," Jack admitted. "But I couldn't get in, I'm a guy." He sighed as she glowered at him, determined with her eyes and everything else to make him submit. Just whose plot was this, anyway? "Servant's entrance, all right? If you wore blue robes, you'd be taken for a senior servant and expected to be waiting on the princess."

"Great," said Rose, suddenly as happy as a woman grinning like a wolf could be. She stood on her toes and kissed his cheek. "I've got my mobile, I'll call you if I get stuck or have any trouble getting her out again."

"How're you gonna reach me?"

"The Doctor hooked up your wrist thingee, the one you've been fixing?"

Jack looked down at his mostly non-functional vortex manipulator. It had been behaving better since they'd been on the TARDIS. Still didn't have temporal or teleport function, but he was working on that. Looked like the Doctor had been working on it, too. "Huh," he said, surprised.

"So it'll be ok," Rose said, and then she was gone.

For all that this had been his idea, Jack was starting to have a bad feeling about this. He left the alley and went to look for the Doctor. Whether it was to start phase two of the plan or simply to rescue the head-strong girl from herself, he just didn't know any more.

* * *

He found the Doctor in the Bazaar, scavenging parts from something that looked like it might have been a Wave-hopper, a few lifetimes and a lunatic owner or two ago. "You know what," the Doctor said to the proprietor, "this thing's just about had it. I'll give you ten credits, if you'll have the whole bloody thing delivered to my ship."

"Ten credits, sir?" the proprietor exclaimed in disgust. "I can't even sell you the tail-fin for ten credits! One hundred and not a jot less."

"I wouldn't give you a jot for the tail fin," the Doctor said. "Look at it, all banged up like that, you'd never be able to straighten it out without retractors and a four-dimensional chainsaw. Twelve. 'Lo, Jack."

Jack tugged urgently at the Doctor's sleeve while the proprietor dubiously went down to ninety credits and the Doctor had to do the hauling away himself.

"What?" said the Doctor to Jack, before turning back to skinning the cheat at the booth alive. "Tell you what. I'll haul it away meself. For ten credits. Got my man Jack here, he can help with that."

"Yeah, but..." Jack said

"I'll not take a jot below 85 for it, sir." They argued back and forth while Jack tried to get the Doctor's attention without having to admit that he might have let their little companion sorta get herself into maybe trouble.

"Look at these temporal displacers. Still fully functional. And the gravitics, all easily brought back on-line."

Jack had had enough at this point. "Those fully functional temporal displacers? They're all stuck on October 26th. S'pose the year's still functional, but what good is it? As for your gravitics, you'll never get them back on-line, since you've removed the stabilizer and replaced it with what looks for all the world like a pancake turner."

The booth was suddenly and irredeemably closed. The Doctor glowered at Jack, then started to chuckle. "What've you got yourself into that you need my help that much, then?" he wondered.

"It's not me," Jack said, wondering if he should stick to the plan or just hit the panic button.

"Where's Rose?" the Doctor asked, glowering down at Jack now, blue eyes blazing.

Panic button.

"That's what I've been trying to tell you, Doc. She found out about the princess."

The Doctor looked around vaguely. "What princess?" he asked curiously.

"The girl in the tower," Jack explained, gesturing across the city at the looming, obvious architecture.

"What about her?" the Time Lord asked, starting to look more than a little worried.

Jack explained to the Doctor everything he had told Rose - including that she should call the Doctor, and that only girls could get in by the servants' entrance. If this thing was going to go completely to hell, he might as well try to get the plan completed the way it had been intended, right?

"Could probably use the servant's entrance if I made you a eunuch," the Doctor threatened.

Jack blanched. "There's always the rescue," he suggested, as desperate to get this over with as he was to save his bits. Well, almost.

"Rescue?"

"Yeah," Jack explained urgently. "See, that's the reason they've got her locked up - so some heroic, qualified person can rescue her."

The Doctor stared. "Have I ever told ya your entire species makes no sense?" He sank down into his leather jacket, frowning and, Jack hoped, thinking up a good solution.

* * *

Somewhere between deciding against scaling the building and discovering that Rose either couldn't or wouldn't answer her phone, the Doctor got fed up and strode over to the tower, Jack on his heels. "How'm I s'posed to take you with me, then?" the Doctor wondered as they walked. "Don't think you're gettin' outta this."

Jack tugged his braces down so they hung from their clips at his waist, then jerked his t-shirt off over his head. "Now I'm your servant," he said. "I'll pretend to be a deaf-mute or something."

The Doctor shook his head. "Stoop a bit, lad. You're too proud ta be a servant, walkin' around like that." The Time Lord chuckled. "An' you call yourself a con-artist."

"I'm a bad con-artist, Doc, if one girl smiling and one guy glowering at me's gonna make me turn my con, don't you think?"

"I dunno," the Doctor said. "Could be you're just a good bloke, an' too honest is all."

"You take that back," Jack said, pretending to be offended. Actually, he was almost ashamed. It was such an absurd dichotomy. The purpose of being a con-artist was to make people believe in you. But when people like the Doctor and Rose believed in you, you were doomed.

But this con was for their benefit, dammit. He just had to keep telling himself that.

The Doctor stalked up to the guard house, announced he was the Last of the Time Lords, and demanded to be allowed to see the princess. There was the sound of a toilet flushing nearby and a young man who looked like the complete fairy from Disney's Three Musketeers fell out of a trap door in the side of the tower (Jack only knew this because Rose had shown it to them yesterday - and started sobbing over Lady de Winter). The Doctor went over to help the poor man up.

"Don't I know you from somewhere?" he asked the guy. The fairy, however, took one look at the Time Lord and ran off screaming.

"Nah," the Doctor said, and turned back to the guard. He was given a clip board, which he scribbled a question mark onto the bottom of, followed up by writing "The Doctor" below it in the most atrocious print the ex-Time Agent had ever seen (which was saying something, as he'd seen his own hand writing).

Some sort of brilliant ray of light scanned over the Doctor, and the guard grunted and gestured at the entrance, but then moved to stop Jack. "He can't go with you," the guard said as the Doctor gestured for Jack to follow him toward the tower.

"He's my servant," the Doctor said. "Goes everywhere I do."

Jack slapped on a look of slavish devotion and proceeded to fawn at the Doctor and straighten the leather jacket. Yum... Leather. The guard continued to look dubious.

"Don't worry," the Doctor continued, grinning wickedly. "He's a eunuch." He made a gesture like a pair of scissors and Jack whimpered.

The guard snickered. "All right. Good luck, mate."

Two flights up into the tower and Jack dropped the routine, pulled his t-shirt out of his back pocket, and tugged it on over his head. "A eunuch?" he demanded in disgust.

The Doctor chuckled. "Worked, didn't it?" he asked. All at once, they were descended on by something that very strongly resembled a hail storm of pigeons.

* * *

Three floors later, the Doctor suddenly said, "You're a good man to have around in a fight, Jack. Think we'll keep you." They'd just finished battling a horde of fighting robots and, between the Doctor's sonic screwdriver and his alien martial arts, Jack had only gotten off a couple rounds with his favorite well-hidden blaster. The robots were scattered all over the floor in quaking, sparking bits.

The Doctor gave the blaster a disparaging glance. "Might haveta train you up a bit, o' course."

Jack, who'd thrived in spite of every rigorous instant of Time Agency training was, nonetheless, absurdly proud. "Would you?"

Five floors after that, Jack was curled up in a corner, cursing and batting at things only he could see. "It's a con!" he admitted.

"I know," the Doctor said, running the sonic screwdriver over him.

"The con was for your benefit, dammit!"

"I know."

"Nobody was supposed to get hurt!"

"I know."

"See, I was going to switch Rose for the princess and sneak me and the princess and her crown jewels out. You could marry Rose and make a run for it at your leisure... although, really, you both need to get laid, so I'd recommend waiting until after the honeymoon. I could get the princess, she could get away, this stupid cloistered fairy tale thing would die a natural death, and we could sell the jewels in New Saskatchewan to keep you in TARDIS parts for a few years yet and set the princess up in a real life on a real planet. And now I'm going to die of a fatal poisoned pigeon bite." Jack shuddered and scrunched his eyes closed. The pain was fading away, so he knew he only had moments - he was probably going numb just before dying. "Just leave me here, Doctor, save yourself!"

The Doctor chuckled. "You are an idiot, Harkness," he said. "On your feet, now, lad."

"Wha?" said Jack, and his head stopped swimming. His eyes fluttered open. "I'm not gonna die?" he asked.

"No, you're not," the Doctor said. "Setting 5874. Draws out poisons. An' setting 332. Cauterizes wounds. You're fine, on your feet, let's go rescue these girls."

Jack straightened, trying to adjust himself and his dignity. Unfortunately, his dignity appeared to have died of the poison even if the rest of him hadn't. He sighed. "Just... um. Forget I said any of that, all right?"

The Doctor rolled his blazing blue eyes and, much to Jack's annoyance, laughed at him.

* * *

They burst through the door at the top of the tower to finally find this cloistered princess in dire need of rescue. Jack had been expecting some sort of grateful welcome, maybe a sobbing, hugging female.

What he wasn't expecting, and what he got, was a room full of scantily-clad females, giggling. The Doctor looked rather startled. "Hello," he said, brightly but rather warily.

The girls all giggled at him. The Doctor looked at Jack and Jack shrugged back. All the girls, every last one of them, sighed. The Doctor frowned. The girls giggled. Jack looked at the Doctor. The girls giggled.

"I think we need Rose for this," the Doctor said. "I don't speak the giggly girl dialect of teenager."

"I hope she doesn't, either," Jack replied. "She's not exactly a teenager, you know."

"Neither are this lot," the Doctor pointed out rather accurately.

"Be nice, Doc," Jack said, and flashed the room his come-hither smile. "Hello, I'm Captain Jack Harkness."

As one, the group of girls all squealed loudly and shrilly, and collapsed in fluttery little heaps, giggling more.

Jack inched closer to the Doctor. The Time Lord frowned. "Which one of you lot is the princess?" he asked.

"That's me," said a very pretty blonde in the middle of the group, and Jack felt his pulse quicken.

"Great," said the Doctor. "Can we talk to you, alone?"

The girls all giggled again. The princess looked thoroughly scandalized. "I think we're going to have quite enough time alone, thank you," she said rather haughtily. "After all, we'll be married." She sighed. "I'm not impressed, you know, I'm not. You talk too much, your accent is appalling, and I imagine I'll have to keep a stable full of men to supplement your short-comings."

"Oi!" the Doctor snapped.

"And that's another thing. How do you expect to rule a planet when all you can do is run around and shout nonsense words at people?" The princess's smile was rather strained. "Mind, you do have a very impressive arse."

Jack slapped a hand over his mouth to keep from joining the rest of the princess's entourage in giggles at that point.

"You can just forget about that," the Doctor said. "I'm here to rescue you, I'm not marryin' anyone, an' when did you see my arse, anyway?"

The girl directed their eyes to a screen at the end of her bed, which was running footage of a scene of the Doctor and Jack making their way up through the tower. Jack supposed those jeans did fit the Doctor rather well when he was running, didn't they? "Oh, why couldn't it have been the young one?" the Princess said with a sigh.

"You can have him," the Doctor said, grandly. The girls all giggled.

"He's not a eunuch?"

"Not s'far as I know. You're not a eunuch, are you Jack?"

"Nope," he said. He gave the princess his best smile and looked her over in a way that had made men, women, and random inanimate objects go weak in the knees all across the cosmos. "Got all my parts and they work very, very well."

"Good," the princess said grandly. "Then I shall keep you with him."

"No, no," Jack said, "we're here to get you out!"

The girl looked at them in complete astonishment. "Why would I want out?" she demanded and she sounded a lot less pretty than she looked. "Are you mad? That daft little girl said the same thing. I can't imagine what any of you are thinking. Why would anyone want out?"

"Freedom to choose?" the Doctor suggested.

"It's over-rated," she said with a bored looking wave of her hand. She even paused to check her nails afterwards. "You'll not be having any affairs, you understand, or you either, servant boy. You can stay in our royal suite, if you like." She looked the Doctor over again, and sneered. "I'll want separate bedrooms, though. I'll expect you to bring me expensive presents, and massage my feet when I am tired. Also, I'll want my mother to live with us, and..."

"Jack?" said the Doctor.

"Yeah?" said Jack.

"What d'ya think about running?" he asked.

"Now, please?" Jack said.

They tore off down the hall, frantically looking for some escape that didn't involve fighting their way back down the tower. A door opened halfway down the corridor and they responded to the hand beckoning them inside.

Rose was there, leaning her head against the wall, and muttering soft swear words under her breath. "Right uppity, isn't she?" Rose asked.

The Doctor grumbled and fell back against the wall, folded his arms over his chest, and sunk about as far into the jacket as he could get without wearing it over his head. "What shortcomings?" he muttered.

Jack listened at the door, only stopping long enough to say, "I'm so, so sorry."

Rose huffed. "This is your fault?" she asked. "How?"

"All his plot," the Doctor grumbled. "Not that he didn't have a good idea or two, 'cuz it didn't occur ta me the girl wouldn't want out, either."

"She's not very nice, reallly," Rose said.

The Doctor snorted resentfully. "She's prob'ly right about a few things."

"Only one I can think of," Rose said.

There was a thunderous knock at the door.

"Which one?" Jack and the Doctor asked.

Rose grinned at the Doctor, her tongue poking through her teeth. "You do have a very impressive..."

"Open up in the name of the law," said a man's voice on the other side of the door.

"What do you want?" Jack asked.

"I have a legally binding document here," the man said.

"Let me see that," Jack answered, and jerked the door open. He took the document that the Doctor had signed earlier. It released the planet of liability in the event of death, and it also said that if the signer were successful, he agreed to marry the princess.

Jack handed it to the Doctor. The Time Lord frowned at the paper.

"So all that remains," said the bureaucrat who had handed them the document, "is positive identification. Which of you is the Doctor?"

Rose and the Doctor looked at each other. As one, they turned to Jack. "He is," they both said, in perfect unison.

* * *

Jack leaned against the coral support strut, trying to die of embarrassment in private. Rose wouldn't let him. She kept teasing him, trying to get the details of his failed plot out of him, and generally having a blast "taking the mickey", as she called it.

The Doctor was still laughing at him.

They were beautiful, they were brilliant, and they were completely evil. They were also much better at conning people than he was, which hardly seemed fair.

And yeah, ok, so they'd saved him from death, and a wife worse than death, but did they have to go about it that way?

The Doctor had read the document over, confessed his identity, and then, quite proudly, claimed he'd cheated. The bureaucrat had sputtered a protest, but the Doctor insisted, and since he'd cheated, he couldn't claim the hand of the princess, because the document said "legitimately succeed in the rescue." The Doctor had informed the man that since he'd taken a partner to help him, and not a servant, he'd cheated.

The bureaucrat maintained that since Jack was a eunuch, he didn't count as a partner. This had resulted in the bureaucrat getting a free and excruciatingly painful feel. Then, with increasing desperation, the little man had insisted that he wouldn't tell if they didn't.

At that point, Rose had promised to tell everyone, claiming to be a reporter for the local news. Then, she'd claimed credit for the whole con, insisting that she'd hired the Doctor and Jack to get through so she could tell the world how this operation actually worked.

The bureaucrat, being a highly civilized bureaucrat, and a very stressed one, hadn't even thought to threaten her. He'd instead broken into tears and admitted that the Doctor was actually the third successful suitor to claim cheating after meeting the princess. Tomorrow was the deadline, and he no longer knew what to do.

The Doctor had suggested he just let the girl rule, since she'd been trained to it for so long and so well. The grateful bureaucrat probably hadn't thought it through when he agreed it was a brilliant idea. Rose had agreed to be bribed to silence in exchange for having a woman on the throne at last. And then they'd run like hell.

"I just wanna know," said Rose, "why it never occurred to you that the princess would be a spoilt brat."

"Doctor!" Jack whined, "make her leave me alone."

"You've been here long enough ta know I don't get ta make Rose do anythin'," the Doctor said absently from where he was tinkering with the console.

"You could," Jack said, suggestively. "If you'd just..."

The Doctor looked up suddenly. "Thought you'd learned your lesson," he said.

Rose grinned. "Bet the people of Avalon will learn theirs," she said cheekily, offering the Doctor her hand.

He took it, then strode across the room and clapped his free hand on Jack's shoulder. "C'mon, Captain, you have the look of a man who could use a drink."

Jack smirked. Learn his lesson? That'd be the day. It was, after all, interesting what happened with two people when you got them drunk. Whistling a jaunty tune, he followed the Doctor and Rose down the corridor and, of course, continued to plot.


	7. The Retribution

My very very favorite of all the Recipes for Disaster, this one has been saved to celebrate **Olfactory_Ventriloquism**'s birthday. Today is the big day (12/23), and I hope this story does such a fantastic occasion justice!

_This confection, a tried and true standard, is usually served freshly steamed and piping hot. An interesting variation may be found in this recipe. Place one Time Lord in Leather within reach. Remove leather. Decaffeinate one pink and yellow human. Enclose container. Add caffeine. Run away._

* * *

**The Retribution**

On Saturday morning, Rose walked into the kitchen, waved a bleary hello to the Doctor, and poured herself a cup of tea. She paid absolutely no attention to anything else, so single-minded was her focus on her tea cup. She was at least half asleep. Vaguely, she noted a loud scraping noise, some thumps and quite a bit of that chiming cursing of his, but she didn't pay any attention to it. Her caffeine stream had too much blood in it and she wasn't thinking clearly.

Tea at last in hand, she took several long sips and sighed contentedly. She walked past the table, only pausing long enough to run her hand lightly through the Doctor's short cropped hair, and wandered over to the pantry to rummage through it.

There were three boxes of cereal in the cupboard and they were all empty. "Jack," she complained bitterly and reached to chuck them into the recycler. She turned and blinked at the Doctor, noting he was a bit pink in the face for some reason, and waved the last empty box at him before she binned it. "We're out. Need to stop for some more."

"No problem," he muttered. "'Least, I don't think so."

She opened the fridge, pulled out a few groceries and took them to the stove. "Bacon and eggs all right or have you already eaten?"

"No," he said softly. "That's fine."

"'K," she said, and finished her tea, then reached around him to seize the teapot.

"I've got it," he said and took her mug from her.

Rose nodded, blinked blearily at his bare shoulder, and rubbed it with a curious hand while he poured her a second mug of tea. He didn't often show up without his leather jacket, after all, never mind missing his jacket and his jumper. He passed her the cup and she noticed that, for some reason, his hands appeared to be shaking.

She turned back to the stove and started rummaging through the cabinets for the pans she usually used. She grumbled a small curse when she realized she'd forgotten something. "Can you hand me the butter?" she asked the Doctor.

Butter and a pint of cream were delivered to her side while she started the bacon. "Scrambled, then?" she asked.

"Suits the situation," the Doctor replied, sounding quite cheerful, now.

She nodded and went back to her cooking, pausing to have a bit more tea from time to time, while the thumping and swearing continued from the direction of the door. She glanced over at the Doctor, figured he must have forgotten his boots as well, and asked him if he could fix her another cuppa.

He sidled past her carefully, took her mug, and turned. She hip-checked him lightly, chuckling, as she reached up to grab plates from the overhead cabinet.

He put the mug beside her, swore loudly and gratingly, and there was more thumping from the direction of the door. Rose sighed and threw a couple of pieces of bread into the toaster. He was obviously in a bad mood this morning, and would probably need a good breakfast to deal with it.

Her third cup of tea finished, she finally felt like she was alive again, and started serving up their plates. "I'll put Jack's in the microwave for him, I guess. You want jam or marmalade?"

"I'll get it," the Doctor offered.

She set the plates on the table, watched him saunter across the room, and her brain tapped her on the shoulder and asked her if she would mind terribly if it turned up now because she was missing something obvious without it. She shrugged and reached for the cutlery.

The Doctor leaned up against the cabinet across the kitchen from her, and asked, "Grape or strawberry?"

She glanced up at him, dropped the forks, and then danced out of the way while they fell around her feet.

"Morning, Rose," the Doctor said, playfully, and continued to lean.

"Um..." she said.

"Don't have um. Grape or strawberry? Might can scare up some apple butter if I look around hard enough."

Rose rubbed her eyes and looked again. "Doctor?" she asked.

"Yeah?"

"Am I awake?"

"You are now," he said.

"Are you sure?" She banged her hand on the counter, and it hurt, but nothing changed.

"Well?" he asked.

"Are you awake?" she suggested.

"Wondered that myself for awhile, but then you turned up, an' nothin' much happened, so I'm pretty sure I am, yeah, why?"

"Well, it's just..." She decided that she was hallucinating, since he was standing there so casually, so she changed the subject. "Grape."

He nodded and reached into the fridge to find the requested grape jam. Rose watched all this and decided if she was somehow dreaming, it wasn't one of the usual ones, so it would probably be in her best interest to stay on this side of the kitchen.

Then he bent over and she bit her lip, hard, over the whimper that rose in her throat. "What was that?" the Doctor asked.

"Nothing," she squeaked.

She was almost certain she heard him chuckle. He stood up and turned around, jam bottle displayed proudly in his hand and Rose hastily averted her eyes. Her senses all started screaming at her, insisting that the view was much better closer to the jam bottle than the floor and maybe she should just check it again. With enormous effort, she ignored them.

There was a scrape of the Doctor's chair being pulled out, so Rose turned around and fetched more cutlery. Bending to sweep up the spilled forks, she managed to force her eyes to linger only on the bare feet under the table and nothing else. Still wasn't good for her - he had sexy feet, if that was even possible. Maybe it was an alien thing.

"You coming?" he asked.

Every drop of blood in her body decided to go in a direction other than the one it had been going in. "Sure," she squeaked as she watched his nostrils flare. Just ignore it, she told herself firmly. It's some damn alien something, or you're just imagining things, it's not real, it IS NOT REAL!!

"You all right, Rose?"

"'M fine," she insisted as she lowered herself gingerly into her chair and tried not to squirm.

The Doctor got up, walked around her, and fetched the butter. She bit her lip harder and snatched up her fork, hoping that keeping her hand busy would prevent it from doing anything stupid.

When he settled back down, his cheeks and ears were pink again, but he applied himself to his food. Rose followed suit. "Got a pen?" he asked after a few minutes.

"Why?"

"Thought I'd make a shopping list. I'm not doing groceries your way again, all that wandering around, fiddling with stuff, it's..."

"Domestic!" she said with a real laugh. She reached behind her and pulled open the junk drawer, rifling through it until she found a blue biro and note pad. She passed them over, and sat back to watch him as his eyes flickered attentively over the cabinets and the fridge. He couldn't actually see what was inside them without opening them, could he? Did Time Lords have x-ray vision?

Did she?

That would explain a bit. She glanced at the cabinets. Guess not. "What are you doing?" she asked.

"Calculating," the Doctor said and stuffed most of a piece of toast into his mouth.

He ended up with jam in a place that would have made her scream with frustration if she wasn't hallucinating. Her whole body shook, actually trembled with desperation to get over there and clean up the jam. The Doctor looked up at her and blushed bright red this time, before snatching up a napkin and removing the jam. Rose hated the napkin with a purple passion, but then it had saved her from doing something abysmally stupid, so she couldn't complain, could she?

She was about three and a half seconds from exploding when the Doctor leaned over his tablet and started scribbling. Rose munched a slice of bacon. The Doctor ate with one hand and scribbled with the other.

"See you decided to go with the cliche on the handwriting," she observed dryly.

He looked up at her and grinned. "But you can read it." He waved the tablet in front of her face as that grin got broader and brighter.

"Mostly 'cuz mine sucks, too," she answered.

He nodded. "Good point." Then he set the tablet down and proceeded with his writing and eating... with the opposite hands he'd started with.

"You're ambi... ambidextry-thingee," she said.

"Ambidextrous," he corrected. "Can be. Genius, me."

"You think you're so impressive," she teased, like she usually would.

"I can do many impressive things with my hands, Rose Tyler."

"I'm sure," she said, after she'd looked at those huge, calloused hands for a moment, but before she'd managed to get any sort of sensible control over her vocal chords, obviously, or her brain. She felt her face erupt with color and when those blue eyes shot up to meet hers, she thought about diving under the table to hide.

Would, too, except that would make things worse, what with the circumstances being what they were.

He looked quite embarrassed by her observation for a moment, but when he noticed her blush, his eyes took on a merry, mischievous twinkle, and his eyebrows arched expressively. She was almost positive she squeaked when he took her free hand in one of his, because that deep-chested chuckle of his started. It sounded different, darker somehow, more... god help her, she was really losing it now... more sensual.

His fingers stroked hers gently, lightly. He was turning her on and all he was doing was holding her hand. She was going to kill him. She was going to melt into a puddle of desperately wanton goo. She was going to jump him in three seconds. Two seconds. One...

The door swung open and Jack swaggered inside. Rose blinked as the spell broke and the Doctor drew his hand away from hers. "Don't close that," the Doctor snapped.

"Where's your shirt?" Jack asked, holding the door open as requested.

Rose blinked. The Doctor was gone. "Wha...?" she managed.

Jack looked out into the hall and whistled. "Come to think of it, Doc, where're your pants?!"

Rose told herself firmly that it was time to wake up now, but was interrupted by the sound of a slamming door. "What just happened?" she asked, dazed and baffled.

"Well, I got a great view of the Doc's backside, but I'm thinking it's not anywhere near as great as the one you got."

Rose closed her eyes and rubbed them firmly, then jumped to her feet and cornered Jack, prodding his chest with her index finger. "Right. That was a terrible trick to play, Jack. How dare you?! The Doctor's been nice to you, let you stay, only tried to throw you out one airlock. You know how important his dignity is to him, how could you..."

Jack held up both hands in surrender. "I didn't do it," he insisted. "Honestly, Rose, you know me better than that. I would never leave the man naked somewhere."

Rose thought about it and deflated. "Good point," she agreed. "Naked, yes. Leave, not so much. God, he's gonna be hiding for days."

"Probably." Then Jack did a double take. "Are you trying to tell me you stood here in this kitchen with that and... did NOTHING?? Are you crazy?"

Rose sighed. "I was half asleep," she claimed defensively.

"I bet he will hide," Jack accused. "He'll be so upset. Bet you didn't even give him one compliment, did you?"

"Shut up," Rose grumbled.

"You should apologize," Jack told her.

"For what?!" she demanded. "I didn't do this, and obviously, he didn't do it on purpose so..."

"Oh," Jack realized. "I suppose not..."

Rose suddenly worried. A thousand and one very good reasons to worry popped into her head. "Oh, God, Jack, what do I do?"

"At a guess?" Jack said. "Don't piss off the TARDIS."


	8. The Invocation

A happy birthday note to NewDrWhoFan, with my love and loads of huggles! Special thanks are due to OV, again, for the beta, and the discussions of variations on the Byzantium theme.

_The newest Recipe for Disaster: Divide companion and Time Lord. Add aliens. Prepare blue-eyed Time Lord in silk instead of leather. Elevate one pink-and-yellow human. Return prepped Time Lord. Stir, gently. Add panic. Hide and watch._

* * *

**The Invocation**

The door of her royal suite was firmly closed behind her before Rose Tyler was willing to risk letting the perfect smile drop off her face. Come to think of it, did you call it a royal suite when you were a goddess, or was it a goddess suite? And if the goddess was also a queen, which title did you use first? Did any of it matter, when you hadn't actually agreed to run for either office, thanks?

Rose flung herself down on the rather large bed and very strongly considered having a royal and/or divine temper tantrum. Whose bright idea had this one been, then?

It wasn't hers, Rose knew that. She'd been a little stressed, lately, what with having to make sure she woke herself up thoroughly before she left her room in the mornings, and also with trying to figure out what to do with certain images in her mind. She'd been fine with the idea of curling up in front of the fire with a good book, especially if she could bully the Doctor into reading to her. It wouldn't do a damn thing for the thoughts in her head, but at least she'd have him there with her while she was thinking of how pretty he was without that jumper.

It certainly wasn't Jack's idea, either. Rose thought he hadn't really recovered from having his dignity beaten to a pulp when their last "simple visit" to an alien planet had turned misadventure. All the same, he'd covered it well. He'd claimed the whole idea was boring and told them to wake him when it was over. Then, he'd settled down with a beer and the Doctor's five thousand channel telly.

The Doctor had made a point of telling Jack not to watch the porn. Jack had made a point of pointing out that the Doctor knew which channels to forbid him.

And speaking of the Doctor...

_"You'll love Byzantium, Rose. The planet, not the city, mind. They're both nice, I s'pose, but only one's got proper plumbing..."_

_"They wear cloth of gold, it'll look fantastic on - on you..."_

_"Tell you what, I'll buy you a sapphire the size of a hen's egg..."_

_"We can go during the Midsummer Fest - they've this enormous bazaar around the Temple to the Goddess Ze'ev Ra..."_

Oh, she remembered. This one was all down to the enthusiastic salesman who had talked her into coming to this place, in other words, his Time Lordly Uselessness, the Doctor.

Normally, she didn't think of her Doctor as useless, honest. Normally, however, she wasn't deified due to failure of both the "Time" bit - they were two thousand years early - and the "Lord" bit - the locals thought he was a very badly behaved servant.

Usually it was only one or the other that went wrong.

They were so early that the goddess whose festival they were meant to be attending didn't seem to exist yet. The planet wasn't called Byzantium yet, either, because it hadn't been exposed to human beings. Or space ships. Or golden dresses.

So that's the scene set: cue sinister music, materialize the TARDIS in the middle of the town square, fade in bright sunlight, open the doors, and throw out a vast collection of natives to witness the laughing, shiny figure innocently stepping out into the wrong situation entirely. Add the Doctor, blustering out after her, dark and moody, and complaining that she'd slammed the door _open_. Sit back, grab some popcorn, and watch her arse firmly planted on purple cushions while they haul him off to "fix him".

On the plus side, they didn't seem to plan to sacrifice the Doctor - or anyone else - to her. That was better than that one planet where they'd wanted to feed her to the Doctor. He'd spent his time panicking and trying to rescue her, and she'd spent too much time not helping because she was too busy trying not to make the obvious pun.

And speaking of obvious puns, Rose jumped off the bed and paced the floor, wondering what exactly needed fixing. What the hell was she thinking, wallowing in self-pity, when the aliens might, at this very moment, be trying to get themselves blown up? She'd been paraded through the entire town three times, crowned in three different places, and been given three formal introductions since they'd run off with him. There wasn't a moment to lose. She'd be willing to bet that the whole "Oncoming Storm" thing would have absolutely nothing on a man like the Doctor attempting to defend his bits.

Besides, if they actually succeeded... She wasn't even going to entertain that notion. Not at all.

There was a knock at her door, just as Rose was trying to figure out if she should climb out the window or just walk out like she owned the place. She supposed she technically did, after all. Sorta. Rose stared at the door warily. What if the goddess Ze'ev Ra was like the Queen of the May in some old Earth cultures?

She dithered too long, and the door was opened by two of the locals, who marched in and blew some sort of instruments. They were a cross between a trumpet and a kazoo, but Rose didn't like to mention all that. The tall green humanoid Vizier let himself in after them.

"My Queen, we come to escort you to your throne room!"

Rose dared to take her chance. It was now or it might be never, after all. "Er... Any chance I can get the Doctor back soon?"

"The Doctor?" the Vizier questioned.

"Bloke I was arguing with?" Rose clarified. "Blue eyes, leather, gorgeous?"

Now the Vizier blinked his beautiful pink eyes at her and, Rose would swear, shrugged. It was a sort of squaring up of his oddly trapezoidal shape, but she could just sort of tell. She wondered idly if the TARDIS translated body language.

"He will be prepared for you, my Queen," the Vizier assured her. Rose knew he was giving her a huge smile because she'd seen that same expression on all the aliens as they waved and called for her while she was paraded around for them.

"Good enough," Rose said, and hoped it was. She kind of liked these people - they played kazoos and came in pretty colors. If the Doctor got mad at them and wanted to blow things up, she might have to stop him, and she really hated taking his explosives away from him.

Like any kid, he got all pouty when you wouldn't let him play with his toys.

She hadn't gotten around to even learning what Ze'ev Ra was goddess of, but she was starting to suspect, somehow, that it wasn't quite as scary as she'd first thought. Squaring her shoulders and determined to look as in-character as possible, Rose allowed the Vizier and his kazooing trumpeters - or trumpeting kazooers - to lead the way.

* * *

When Rose had worked at Hendricks, corporate had once sent in a bunch of experts to make sure everything that sucked the day before didn't start to suck again until after the inspection was over. One of the people Rose remembered was this ergonomics expert, a frizzy haired giant tyrant of a woman who had gotten them all floor mats for the tills and told them they were standing wrong. At the time, none of the girls had ever wanted to see the petty dictator again.

Right now, however, Rose would have made her co-Queen, if she'd just come to fix this thing. A vast gold throne was just no place for any sort of biped to sit. It was too tall and far too chilly, and Rose needed a pillow almost as much as she needed a footrest, and that only slightly less than she needed to breathe. She had resorted to standing to do most of her speech-making.

It had probably been just as well at first, because all of her speeches consisted of some variation on the whole, "Yes, thank you, next," theme. The natives, on the other hand, all wanted to be seen. They got up in front of her and made grand spectacles of themselves, talking like a Shakespearean monologue and performing like peacocks dancing with trained monkeys.

Their costumes were bright and silly, though Rose was honestly sure that Beefeaters' ones were worse, so she didn't think too much about them. Their tones were like American pundits, all bluster and wit and next to no point. Their posturing was pompous and grandiose and it didn't matter what any of them said, because all Rose kept seeing in her head was the Lollipop Guild from the Wizard of Oz.

She kept a straight face only with effort, but she couldn't help finding "her" aliens to be absolutely wonderful, mostly because this was her first deification. All the same, it would be much better if the Doctor would show up and tell her how to stop being a goddess.

She was just about to consider a good old fashioned tyrannical outburst when a thick cluster of her new guards came in with someone obviously held securely prisoner within their circle. Unless he had been told she was stuck here and waiting on him, Rose would be willing to bet the Doctor was contemplating tripping one of them so he could escape while they all fell like dominos.

How she knew it was the Doctor, Rose couldn't have said. He had a sort of weight on the air around him, if that made any sense, an aura of presence that no amount of posturing on someone else's part could manage to disguise. However, the Vizier very helpfully cleared her of any need to answer that question, even to herself, by thumping his staff on the ground twice. Everyone quieted, even the most pompous courtiers.

"My queen," the Vizier said, "your concubine."

The guards parted. Rose was so happy to see the Doctor that she didn't even register anything beyond the merry mischief sparkle in those shining blue eyes. She darted off the dais to join him, throwing her arms around him to hug him before "her" aliens even knew what they were seeing.

The Doctor hugged back, burying his nose in her hair. Rose burrowed into his chest, rubbing her cheek against the smooth... She had to admit to being puzzled about one or two... Squirming away from the protesting Time Lord in her arms, she looked him over in complete and utter shock. "What are you wearing?" she demanded, as quietly as possible.

He looked like he'd escaped from Arabian Nights. He had on those puffy, flowing trousers you always saw in that kind of film, with tightly cuffed ankles above rather large, pointy toed shoes. Her eyes traveled up the blue silk, stopping to linger at his trim waist. She didn't do it on purpose, but the bejeweled length of the darker blue sash cinched there had forced her eyes to a stop. Besides, if she stopped there, her eyes wouldn't... yeah, wasn't happening. They wandered, all dazed and dreamy, across the bare expanse of his chest.

She'd seen it before, seen all of it in fact, just last week. However, something in the clothes they'd put him in, or in the confidence of his stance, or in the fact that she was wide awake with the view this time, made Rose go all gooey and stupid. Why was she standing in the middle of an auditorium full of aliens? Why wasn't she climbing onto those narrow hips for the ride of a lifetime? Oooh, or bent over that throne and...

Her eyes finished their lingering, longing trip, meeting the Doctor's dancing blue gaze. His irises were indigo, his pupils enormous, something hot and promising in just a look. They were laughing, but it was with her, not at her. Rose tilted her head back. She didn't even stop to think that she wasn't supposed to do that, just offered her lips up for his kiss, his touch, his fire.

He definitely bent his head toward her. Rose was absolutely sure of that, completely certain that he was going to take her offer, and probably her right after.

"My Queen, does he meet with your approval?"

Rose gasped and looked away from the Doctor, feeling like she'd been slammed into a wall as she found the Vizier peering at them with a concerned little smile. It was like vertigo, like dizziness. "What?"

"If he doesn't suit you," the Vizier promised nervously, "we can fix him!"

Rose panicked. Before she knew it, she was moving to keep herself between the Doctor and the Vizier. "He's fine," she insisted frantically. "Better than fine, actually, he's completely perfect. Perfectly perfect, wouldn't trade him." She clung tightly to his hand in case they had to run for it, as she tried to maneuver them so that the crowd wasn't surrounding them. "Gonna keep him forever and ever and never let him go and - and - and make a god out of him, too, so he can stay with me, and..." The well of words went dry, and Rose gathered herself to make a run for it.

The Vizier gave her a wild-eyed look. "As my goddess commands," he agreed, looking quite baffled at her vehemence.

Behind her, where she'd sort of shoved him really, the Doctor chuckled. Rose blushed crimson.

"All hail the consort of our goddess!" the Vizier proclaimed.

And the crowd bellowed back, "All hail!"

* * *

Jack was waiting for them when they got back to the TARDIS. "So, how'd it go?" he asked cheerfully. His face was pure mischief, almost as if he'd known this would happen. Rose glowered at him suspiciously while he stood there and polished his halo at her.

"Would my mistress like chips?" the Doctor offered, and his halo was dangling from his horns as he said it.

"Ooh, kinky!"

Rose tried to glare at both of them, but there was something so wonderful about the pair of them so happy that she couldn't manage it. She leaned against the console instead, trying to drag up as much haughtiness as she had left. Mind, it was hard to say, "Yeah, all right," with dignity, but she managed it somehow.

"What happened?" Jack demanded, fascinated.

The Doctor insisted on telling him every word while Rose stood there blushing flaming crimson. She was a little sulky on that point, too, because if the Time Lord was still dressed as the genie of her wish come true, Jack would've probably stopped breathing. He'd managed to get his kit back, though, so Jack didn't even know that the Doctor had done something so hot it had melted her brain cells.

"How'd you get away?" Jack wondered.

"Easy," the Doctor announced smugly. "Told 'em I was taking their little goddess here on a divine honeymoon. They gave us a rousing send-off, and here we are."

"That's all?" Jack pouted. "Just... you're her concubine, and... nothing?"

The Doctor shrugged, and Rose forced herself to shrug, too. Jack rolled his eyes and stalked off. As he shoved open the console room door, Rose heard him grumble, "There is something _wrong_ with you people."

Rose pulled out her superphone, just to check the time, or something, she didn't know what. She just needed to get a break from the Doctor's dancing blue eyes. Part of her wanted to be able to order him around for real, because she wanted to order him to do something completely filthy.

"Calling your mum?" he asked lightly. "Gonna tell her you got me cheap on eBay or something?"

Rose couldn't help laughing at that. "God, can you 'magine? She'll want me to sell you back."

"You can't," the Doctor reminded her. "Promised to keep me forever and ever, mistress."

Rose couldn't decide if this new game of his was going to kill her or get him jumped or what. So she decided on honesty, just to set him back on his heels a little. "Was a little afraid they were gonna neuter you! It was a big relief when they brought you back, hearin' them call you that, so don't mock it, yeah?"

"You wanna check?" the Doctor offered, his voice bright with barely suppressed laughter.

Rose groaned. "Stop picking on me!" she demanded.

The Doctor chortled. "Yes, mistress."


	9. The Stipulation

_**Chapter Summary:** This tried and true standard recipe can be made all new again by leaving out just one classic ingredient. Blend Time-Lord-in-Leather with Pink-and-Yellow-Companion in the standard plot. Do not add lemon. Use any available exit._**  
**

* * *

**The Stipulation**

Jack was up to something; of that the Doctor had no doubt. First of all, upon arriving at their destination, the Doctor had found Jack talking, apparently to himself, in the console room. Normally, it might not be such a suspicious thing, but this was Jack and he was a terrible, absolutely awful excuse for a conman, and he was standing there smelling guilty as all hell when he spotted the Doctor.

Jack had been asking, for some unfathomable reason, if it was his turn. For some even less fathomable reason, the TARDIS had been laughing at the boy. All in all, the Doctor, being a genius, knew perfectly well that something was being plotted by someone... well, by Jack, to be specific.

So, the Doctor immediately left where they had been, claiming urgent business elsewhere. When Rose arrived dressed for their original destination, in an attractive, if fluffy, parka, her pretty face blooming from the center of a circle of white, the Doctor almost regretted it. Nevertheless, as much as he hated disappointing Rose, he enjoyed frustrating Jack, so he had to call it this way, this time. Besides, what she changed into was still pretty, but more form-fitting, which the Doctor absolutely did not have any comment about (if only because he didn't want to be caught drooling).

Thus, they had arrived on the planet Erapenta. The Doctor hadn't been aiming for Erapenta, but Jack couldn't have possibly even heard of Erapenta, so it couldn't have been through his machinations. There was absolutely, positively no way whatsoever that Jack could be responsible for anything that happened after that.

The Doctor had to keep reminding himself of that point, because if he didn't, the fact that Jack was definitely up to something would be a perfectly acceptable excuse to pin this whole unholy disaster on him. Jack, however, aside from not being responsible for this, was also not present, in fact was missing.

"I just wanted help finding a bloke," Rose tried to insist.

The Erapentan priest bobbing in front of Rose hummed back in a cheery, light-hearted sort of way. The Doctor shook his head, just waiting for her to try to explain that one.

"Well, yeah, he's a bloke, sure," she allowed, "but I didn't mean that sort of 'find'."

The Doctor couldn't help but think this was a vast improvement over last month's "I mean men". He was actually male in Rose's estimation at last, which fact, despite everything, cheered him enormously. The priest's hum turned into a lecture at Rose on the niceties and proprieties, and how nothing good ever happened to lings who did not stick to them.

Erapenta was inhabited by two species of large, sentient birds, and they called themselves Groundlings - for the taller species that rather resembled giant kiwis - and Airlings - for the species of enormous hummingbirds. They called all beings a word that translated as "lings" for short. This priest was an Airling - they usually were, as the Groundlings had different concerns, and tended to leave the more mental exercises to the Airlings.

Rose sidled up to the Doctor, snapping him out of his thoughts as the Erapentan priest flitted off to do something the Doctor hadn't caught. "I told him I'll need Jack before I can go through with this," Rose said.

The Doctor frowned, feeling decidedly putout. "Why Jack?" he demanded grumpily, even though he knew. Of course she wanted Jack. Just because she'd finally figured out he was male, the Doctor supposed she didn't have to also think he was an interesting male. He was old, and it was one hell of an age gap; Rose had said so herself. Also, he wasn't even remotely pretty and Rose preferred them pretty. Next to Jack's movie star good looks, the Doctor couldn't figure out why he was even asking.

"If a girl's gonna get married without her mum," Rose said, her tone very flippant and amused, "she's at least gotta have her maid of honor!"

She what? The Doctor stared at her. She... did she... was she going to...? "Your what?"

Rose chuckled. "Well, I couldn't very well have said my space slut of honor, could I? Feathers is a priest, and besides, there's no telling what their language would make of it!"

The Doctor was probably never going to stop grinning. "Probably earn you another lecture at the least," he agreed.

Rose rubbed her ears and lowered her voice to a tiny whisper. "Definitely want to avoid that. Is it just me, or is this hummingbird language of theirs one of the most annoying sounds in the whole universe?"

The Doctor allowed himself a shrug. "Just be glad you don't actually understand them," he said.

"Why?" Rose wondered.

"The TARDIS tempers down the sound field. It's actually..." Rose was giving him that tongue-in-teeth grin of hers and the Doctor rolled his eyes. "Well, either that or it's me ears," he admitted with dark humor.

Rose snickered at him. He poked her in the side, just to watch her squeal. He had to distract himself now, absolutely had to do. Otherwise, his brain would go off in directions it had no business going.

Every adult on Erapenta was married. It was imperative to them, how their entire society functioned. The only lings released from the stipulation were ones in religious orders, and not even all of those. They didn't mind off-worlders, the Erapentans, but they absolutely expected, and insisted, that aliens at least make a demonstration of following their rules. The Doctor remembered all of that, now.

However, he hadn't remembered it in time to warn Rose when they'd landed. He hadn't even remembered later, when they'd been lingering on the edge of a wedding in the same sunny field they'd first landed in. They were looking for Jack, who'd disappeared as usual, when Rose happened to mention she wanted an outdoor wedding when she got married.

The priest had pounced, and now Rose and the Doctor were going to be getting married, because that was the done thing on Erapenta. The Doctor supposed he could object, maybe even should, but the truth was, he'd gotten to the point where he could only think of a single circumstance in which he'd object to marrying Rose.

_And then, the honeymoon! _a gleeful, triumphant, wicked little thought went parading through his skull. All right, it wasn't a little thought. It was a great big thought that came complete with a bottle of champagne, a dozen roses, a chamber orchestra, and understated lighting. It also, on occasion, came with chocolate sauce.

He'd gotten abysmal at ignoring it, the Doctor had, and it had already gone well past the point of being televised in technicolor even on his best (worst) days. Other days, the only thing for it was cold showers.

At the moment, he was opting for risky behavior instead, laughing and tickling Rose while she squirmed in his hold and tried very ineffectually to get away. In his best "railroad track villain" voice, the Doctor proclaimed, "You'll never escape me, Miss Tyler, never!"

Rose squealed and giggled and writhed in his hold and the Doctor bit his lip over a gasp. "My Doctor will save me!" she proclaimed proudly, then burst into peals of laughter as she fell off her high-heeled shoes. She tangled her legs in the Doctor's and brought him down with her, and the Time Lord wondered if it was Christmas somewhere and he'd been deemed to have been very good this year.

"Oh, I say!" exclaimed a supercilious voice from somewhere above them.

The Doctor frowned and pulled his face out of Rose's cleavage. If it was Christmas, he was about to get his lump of coal. "Yes?" he grumbled.

Rose tossed him a lazy wink and hooked her leg around the back of his knee when he went to move. Did she actually have no idea what she did to him? He'd known Rose had some trouble believing she was attractive, but this was a little ridiculous.

"Well, honestly," the humming bird voice proclaimed, and the Doctor realized it was the priest whom Rose had dubbed 'Feathers'. His real name sounded sort of like that, actually, the parts that Rose could pronounce, anyway. "Are you sure you need to wait for this friend of yours? I've sent out a message to all communities asking them to direct him here, but you two look like you'd... well, I don't like to say, but your actions seem a tad... erm... intimate. Why don't I just marry you now, and you can have another ceremony with your friend at your convenience?"

The Doctor looked down at Rose where she was effectively pinned under him. "Wanna make a run for it?" he offered.

Rose gave him a look that made their position make perfect sense, her dark eyes blazing. The Doctor sincerely hoped he wasn't going to have to make a sonic screwdriver joke. "Nah," she said, in a voice that would steam up his cold shower, "let's just go through with it." She licked her lip.

There was no way she didn't know. No one was that innocent, not in the 21st century, possibly not ever. He frowned, wondering if he should do something about this, and if so, what.

"You don't mind, do you, Doctor?"

No, he couldn't possibly mind, since his mind had departed the scene, the result of his brain being rendered bloodless. He was fighting with everything in him to keep from giving himself away, from pouring everything into her. In about two seconds, he was going to lose that fight, snog the hell out of those pouty lips, and clue her in on the secrets of Time Lord anatomy.

"Well, that's settled then," said the priest, and the very next thing the Doctor knew, he and Rose were standing hand-in-hand, saying vows that made no logistical sense to an alien god they'd never before heard of. He rather thought it was a fantastic way to spend an afternoon.

* * *

Being birds, the Erapentans didn't have a kissing tradition as part of their marriage rites. The Doctor had given very deep and serious thought to going with the human tradition anyway, as Rose had been watching him the entire ceremony with this look in her eyes that set his hearts thundering. She was standing on her toes, her eyes dark and challenging, a dare the Doctor didn't even want to refuse.

The Doctor seriously considered giving Feathers a free trip to the Erapentan moon when the alien priest interrupted their holding pattern, and the only thing that saved the ling from learning to fly at half the speed of light, was that he interrupted to suggest they retire. "It is a wedding night tradition," Feathers said, slightly amused and slightly scandalized. "We provide you with the finest accommodation, and all the finest amenities to help set the mood."

Rose's look blazed higher and the Doctor had to stuff a hand in his jeans pocket. Right, that was it, it was time they did something about this constant stasis of their relationship. All the hot longing looks and wild fantasy couldn't be any kind of match for the night her eyes were promising now.

He took Rose's hand and firmly led her off to the mentioned suite. Maybe they should just go with this, too, and indulge a night of carnal bliss, wrapped in each other and sweaty sheets. At this point, the Doctor was at least willing to consider shagging her against a wall if he could only figure out how to relieve them of their clothes. Rose kept shooting him looks that suggested that she didn't actually care about the clothes as long as they could just get on with the shagging.

The honeymoon suite was just ahead. A group of happily chirping Groundlings stood in front of it, a salute to the newly weds to wish them well. The door was opened, the Doctor and Rose were passed through, the door was closed and locked behind them.

"This looks promising," Rose said, and the Doctor couldn't believe he'd never known before that her voice could do all this. She moved over toward the bedding they'd been supplied - an enormous puddle of comfortable looking cloth. However, the second she left the shallow entranceway, Rose froze.

"What is it?" the Doctor asked, and stepped up beside her, concerned and alarmed and almost certain reality had just reasserted itself. He wondered if it was possible to regenerate from disappointment, and then he realized the exact manifestation reality had chosen.

They'd set the mood. So, of course there was special bedding, special lighting, and special music. And, while the bedding could work as fantastic fun for humans, the lighting was already resulting in tearing in the Doctor's eyes. He looked down at Rose and she was sniffling and swiping at her cheeks, a distinctly aggravated expression on her face. He started rifling through his pockets for her sunglasses.

Unfortunately, even if he fixed the lights, there was absolutely nothing he could do about the sound. A soothing, inspiring noise to a flock of high-pitched birds was almost excruciating in human or Time Lord ears. He snagged Rose's arm and tugged her back into the narrow entry where the sound was softer and the lighting not as apparent. "All right?" he asked.

She glared at the door. "Fantastic," she said sarcastically.

The Doctor pulled out the sonic screwdriver to try to adjust things, but they'd apparently deadlocked the controls for reasons the Time Lord was absolutely certain he did not want to know. "So, the light's bad, the music's impossible, the bed's a pile of fabric in the floor, did I miss anything?"

"Running?" Rose suggested grimly.

The Doctor refused to sigh in disappointment, flicked the sonic at the large bay window at the back of the room instead. "Running," he agreed as the window slid open.

Rose's glee as they slid down the drainpipe might have made up for all of this if he'd at least been allowed to go first.

* * *

"I can't believe you guys," Jack said, laughing and shaking his head at the same time. He was sitting in the jumpseat with one heavily bandaged leg propped on the console and the Doctor was more surprised than he could possibly explain. The TARDIS usually didn't let people - even injured ones - use her as a foot rest.

Rose finished explaining the rest of the story with so much humorous detail that even the Doctor couldn't help laughing in spite of his defeat. "You're the unbelievable one," she finished. "You go out and sprain your ankle before you're hardly out the door, and we still miss you coming back?"

"I'd been out a bit longer," Jack defended with a sort of sulky humor.

The room got quiet for a moment, before Jack decided to jump in again. "Look, guys, I know it might not have gone so well for your first wedding..."

"Third," Rose cut him off.

"Fourth," the Doctor corrected.

"Fourth?" she asked, blinking a question at him.

"Uffalla," he said.

Rose gave him a dreamy grin. "Oh, right, fourth."

Jack gaped at them for a moment, sputtered, and then finally continued, as if he was marshaling an argument even he wasn't sure how to apply any longer. "Well, even if things didn't go so well for your _fourth_ wedding, that doesn't mean you can't... er... try again?" He rolled his eyes as he realized that sounded ridiculous even to him. "Hell with it," he grumbled. "Just go have the honeymoon anyway!"

"Gotta get you patched up now," Rose said. The Doctor was almost certain he wasn't imagining the deadly threat implied by her tone of voice. It was fascinating to find Rose every bit as suspicious as he was. She normally spoiled their friend outrageously.

"What?" Jack demanded. "No, don't worry about me!"

"You'll be fine, Captain," the Doctor promised in the most sinister tone he could manage. "We'll take_ good_ care of you."


End file.
